


The Queen Who Would Be Goddess

by Untherius



Series: Dawn and Sky and Sun [5]
Category: Emberverse - S. M. Stirling, Tangled (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-17 16:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1394419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Untherius/pseuds/Untherius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There'd been a time when Rapunzel's domain had been limited to a couple of small rooms in a lonely and isolated tower.  Then she'd had to go and discover her true identity as Crown Princess of a small country.  Little had she known that her realm would eventually extend far, far beyond that.  Fortunately, being Queen of, well, basically everything would come to present a few interesting opportunities and it doesn't take her long to begin meddling in the affairs of Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“It's not fair!” Rapunzel shouted.

Eugene nearly fumbled his bow. Instead, he lowered it and slowly turned his head to gaze inquisitively at his wife, who'd abruptly appeared just out of his peripheral vision. He hated it when she just materialized out of nowhere. Well, he reminded himself, it wasn't exactly out of nowhere per se, but she did have a way of just suddenly popping into corporeal form at seemingly random times and places.

“Um,” said Eugene, “what's not fair? I mean, besides all the obvious.”

Rapunzel glared at her husband. Eugene would normally have been unfazed by his wife's outbursts. He'd seen them all. At least, he thought he had.

Rapunzel shone with a bright yellow glare, in contrast to the golden glow Eugene had come to know after so many years.

“I was perfectly content being in my...bloody tower!”

“But...”

“Well, almost. Then I had to go and discover I was Crown Princess of Corona. But was that enough? Of course not! And did anyone ask me? Did they care what I thought?”

“Well...”

“No! They didn't!” Rapunzel's glow passed from yellow into white, growing brighter by the moment.

If Eugene had been an ordinary man, he'd have been well on his way to developing severe sunburn, if not skin cancer. He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see a flurry of clothing as several of his erstwhile attendants and visitors dove behind a large stack of hay bales. He was glad they all knew the drill. He hated having to explain to the medical staff why his employees kept showing up for burn treatment after some of his wife's outbursts.

“And do you remember what happened when I found out I was going to be Queen and why? Of course you do!”

As Rapunzel's tirade continued, the light shining from her took on an ice-blue-white glare.

“I could have spent all the remaining years of my life living in leisure with my family. But, oh, no! I couldn't be left alone, could I? I just _had_ to go and take over someone else's kingdom. Why? Because I was _bored_!” Rapunzel bellowed. The sound of her voice reverberated off the castle wall several hundred yards away and off the slopes of Parrett Mountain behind it.

“Then I had the bright idea to come back and become a sun. But would the Universe leave well enough alone? Oh, noooo! Not Rapunzel! She never gets a break. All I ever wanted was to follow my little dreams. I _never_ wanted to be in charge of anything. And now? Now I'm in charge of bloody _everything_!!!” Rapunzel roared. Her light flared up into a blue-purple-white glare that would have washed out a nuclear blast.

“What? Rapunzel, you're...”

“I was fine with my little island kingdom on the North Sea,” continued Rapunzel. “Oh, but apparently that wasn't good enough.” Eugene could hear the eye-rolling in her voice and the gushing sarcasm along with it. “Now my kingdom's more than twenty-three _trillion_ miles in diameter! That's six point eight times ten to the thirty-ninth _cubic miles_! Do you have _any_ idea what that means?!”

Eugene was having a hard time following. The words made sense, of course. He just had absolutely no idea where his wife was going with her little tirade. 

“And don't you go thinking my tirade is little,” Rapunzel snapped. 

She knew him so well. “That's...really big.” Eugene could do the math in his head most of the time, but numbers on that scale were very hard to visualize. 

“Really big?” 

“Actually, it...kind of makes my brain hurt. And before you say it, no, I really don't have a solid idea of just how much space that really is. But, Rapunzel? Doesn't your...heliosphere...” 

“Hill sphere,” she corrected. 

“Sorry...Hill sphere.” Eugene knew there was technically a difference. A star's heliosphere ended at its heliopause, the point at which its outgoing radiation no longer pushed back against incoming cosmic radiation. Its Hill sphere defined the area within which the star's gravity affected other objects. For most intents and purposes, they were nearly interchangeable, but that distinction apparently mattered to Rapunzel. “Doesn't it encompass mostly empty space?” 

“That's not the point!” Rapunzel shrieked. 

Eugene sighed, then reached out and blindly took his wife's shoulders, gazing into the unimaginable brightness. “Then what _is_ the point, O love of my life and light of my world?” 

“Light of my world?” 

“Yes, yes, I know that's literal these days, but you know what I mean. But my question still stands. So you rule a heliosphere...sorry, Hill sphere...instead of an island. I mean, what's changed besides the size of the island?” 

Eugene could feel the tension go out of his wife's shoulders. He wasn't sure how that worked, as Rapunzel didn't have actual muscles. But that wasn't at issue. 

“You know how I've been a bit...absent-minded the past month?” said Rapunzel. 

“Yes,” said Eugene uncertainly. He'd noticed that Rapunzel had seemed a bit distracted, though he wasn't sure if anyone else had. Centuries of marriage had taught him how to recognize his wife's nuances. 

“I spent all of last month deep in conversation with Sol. Do you know what it's like having that kind of talk?” Her voice shifted toward the ethereal. 

“Um...no...not really.” 

Rapunzel sighed a sound like the rushing wind. “Do you remember the first year after you brought me home?” 

“Like it was yesterday.” 

“What happened when you tried to pay attention to my father and your own manservant at the same time?” 

“I recall that it didn't work too well,” Eugene chuckled. 

“Same concept.” 

“So...what did you and Sol discuss?” 

“If I were to tell you, it would take several years...and that's if I were to talk nonstop.” 

Eugene cocked his head. He thought Rapunzel had been complicated when he'd met her. That impression had only grown as he'd come to know her, and then had intensified when she'd acquired the Sun-Blood. Recently, though, she'd become...he supposed it would be most accurate to say strange and interesting. Not that she hadn't been interesting before, but since becoming the sun, she'd somehow become a lot more complex. 

“Didn't you say this conversation took a month?” 

“Yes, I did. And it did.” Another sigh reminded Eugene of the rustling of leaves in a spring breeze. “Imagine the collective computer networking power of all of Earth right before the Shift. Now imagine that you personally have _all_ of that bandwidth to yourself.” 

Eugene whistled. 

“Good. Now multiply that by, oh, a couple of tens of billions.” 

Eugene felt his mouth drop slightly. Very little surprised him anymore, but occasionally something did. That was something that happened frequently since Rapunzel's ascension. “That's...remarkable!" 

“No, it isn't!” she snapped. 

“Why?” 

“Remember the arrangement I made with Sol?” 

“That you take her place while she goes off and starts another system.” 

“Exactly.” 

“I still don't follow.” 

“Eugene, sometimes you can be really dense, you know that? Don't you get it? Sol created this system and everything in it!” 

“That's ridiculous. That would make Sol...God.” 

“Goddess,” Rapunzel corrected. 

“So you're telling me that Sol is...was...is...the God...Goddess...of the Christian Bible?" 

“Yes!” She still sounded upset. 

“Rapunzel, that's...that's blasphemy!” 

“It's no such thing!” 

“Assuming she's telling the truth...” 

“We don't lie,” Rapunzel interrupted. 

Eugene exhaled. “Very well...so Christianity really does worship the sun...or the former sun. So what?” 

Rapunzel's growl sounded like distant thunder. “Sol is a sun, the former sun of this system. She's the former Goddess of this system.” 

“And now you are, so...oh. I see.” Eugene grinned. 

“Don't start with me!” 

Eugene raised his hands in a surrender gesture. He knew better than to anger is wife, especially when she'd become so much more powerful. He didn't think she'd smite him or anything, but she had burned off his eyebrows a few times over the years. Besides, he did love her. That, and she was just so irresistibly cute. “So you're saying you really _are_ a goddess, then.” 

Rapunzel's growl sounded deeper. “Not just _a_ goddess, Eugene, _the_ Goddess!” 

“You're God? Er...Goddess?” 

“ _YES!_ ” Rapunzel shrieked. 

“Wow. So...I still don't understand why that's a problem.” 

“Do you have _any_ idea how embarrassing this is?!” 

Eugene shook his head. “Um...no...not exactly. All right, not even remotely. I have absolutely no idea whatsoever why this bothers you so much. Look, Rapunzel, I want to understand. Really, I do.” 

Rapunzel sighed like a prairie grassland. “I don't know if you can.” 

“Does it have anything to do with me being a man with the emotional range of a teaspoon?” 

Rapunzel giggled, a sound like a small mountain brook. It did Eugene's heart good to hear it. “No,” she said, “I think it has more to do with you being human. But thank-you for trying. Yes, I know we have that Yoda mantra. But some things really aren't possible. As high as I am above the Earth, so are my ways above yours.” 

“Isaiah fifty-five, nine.” 

“Truth is truth, Eugene.” 

“So you're saying it's hopeless?” 

“Of course not. It's embarrassing, Eugene, not hopeless. There's always hope. You know that.” 

Eugene stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Rapunzel. “It doesn't embarrass me, Rapunzel.” He leaned down, instinctively seeking her lips with his own. He found them and was soon lost in her caresses. He felt her essence merge with his own, felt her energy gently, lovingly stroking his soul. 

After some vague length of time, Eugene heard Rapunzel's shriek of delight echo in his mind. Then he came, powerfully. 

“Oh, Eugene!” Rapunzel purred a deep, rumbling sound. 

“I love you, Rapunzel,” said Eugene. 

“I love you, too, Eugene.” 

Eugene knelt down and reclined on the gentle, grassy slope. Rapunzel lay next to him, the blinding light quickly fading along with her emotional spike. 

“Oh, and Eugene? You might want to let everyone on the planet know...no, on second thought, I'll let everyone know...that both aurorae are going to be spectacular next week!” At that moment, she looked exactly like the shy, innocent, naïve girl he'd led out of the tower that day so many years before. 

“We see those so rarely,” said Eugene idly, “especially at these latitudes.” 

Rapunzel tittered normally. “Oh, Eugene. You still only see the tip of my iceberg. No, this time, everyone on Earth will see it.” 

Eugene's eyebrows went up and he looked at Rapunzel. “Oh?” 

“That...little tantrum of mine?” Rapunzel grimaced. “Not so little.” 

“Oh. Now, that I do understand.” He kissed her again. “Rapunzel, you're amazing.” 

“I'm glad you think so.” She propped herself up on an elbow. “Sol chose me, you know.” 

“She did?” 

“More or less. She'd wanted to go start a new system for a long time. So she'd been...withdrawing from the world. That's partly why the immaterial became immaterial. So she just watched...and sought someone she could groom as a replacement. Naturally, the other suns didn't approve.” 

“How did she know you'd go to Ingary?” 

“Oh, she didn't. She was going to wait until I'd traveled to the north or south pole. Which...let's face it, Eugene, I _am_ the kind of person who'd do that.” 

Eugene chuckled. That was somewhat of an understatement. Ever since she'd first crossed the windowsill of her tower, she'd grabbed life by the lips and yanked. Many times, Eugene had simply hung on for dear life, sometimes literally. 

“The idea was that once I'd passed beneath the polar magnetic node, she was going to flare me, pluck me off the planet, and convert me. That process was supposed to take centuries. And I was only supposed to be as powerful as an angel. I was to be...a manager, an overseer of this system. 

“But she hadn't counted on me traveling to Ingary, triggering a supernova, and acquiring sun-blood. That had never happened before. And as you know, I essentially ascended on my own terms.” 

“You're incredible.” 

“No, Eugene, I'm dangerous...and frighteningly powerful.” 

“I know.” 

“No, dearest, you don't. If you had any idea just how powerful I am, you'd be terrified out of your mind.” 

“And that's why it bothers you.” 

“No, dearest, it bothers me because it's embarrassing.” 

Eugene exhaled. “See, I really don't understand that. If I became God, I'd think it the greatest thing since sliced bread!” 

“And that's another thing you don't understand. It's like...being the boss. Everyone thinks being the boss...or King, or President, or whatever you want to call it...would be fine and dandy. Until they become that. Only then to they realize just how much of a pain in the pole it is.” 

Eugene chuckled. “Now, _that_ I understand.” 

Rapunzel nodded. “Now imagine that, but scaled up by several factors of ten. Eugene, if everyone knew that I'm Goddess, they'd expect me to snap my metaphorical fingers and divinely deliver us all from Andromeda. But it doesn't work like that. It never has. See, everyone has this preconceived idea that being a deity makes one all-powerful.” She waved her hands in the air, making the same demonstrative gestures she always had. 

“I'm more powerful than any other star by a long shot. In fact...” Rapunzel sighed. “...I'm the most powerful being in the known Universe. So...fine, I suppose that really does make me Goddess. But that still doesn't mean I can just wave a flare and send them all flying. And together, they're still far stronger than I am.” 

“Like being mobbed by army ants.” 

“It's a lot like that, yes.” 

“It sounds like it's also a lot like being Queen. You and I are only politically powerful so long as our subordinates all choose to obey our commands.” 

“You're right. It is. I need the people of Earth to rally together and help me defend them. Or, rather, defend themselves. But they're not likely to do that if they think I can do all the work.” 

“And people don't think their gods have limits.” 

Rapunzel nodded. 

Eugene sighed. “And so we're right back where we were before...trying to hide what no one else would understand.” 

“Everything comes full circle.” 

“Only the stakes are higher. I'm beginning to see your...our...conundrum.” 

“I don't want to be worshiped, Eugene. All that bowing and scraping when I was still Crown Princess always made me uneasy. It still does and I'm pretty sure it always will.” 

“Hence our no-groveling policies,” said Eugene. 

Rapunzel nodded. “I just want to be loved and respected. That's all I've ever wanted...from my people or anyone else's. And now _all_ the people are my people! Despite five hundred years of life experience, despite having been able to observe people's innermost thoughts...more or less...and despite now having total perspective, at the end of the day, I'm still just me, just Rapunzel, the girl in the tower. That's why this whole deity thing embarrasses me so much. 

“When Earth was new, Adam, Eve, and Sol hung out together, not unlike the way I'm hanging out with you right now. That's how things were supposed to be. And that's how I want them, too. 

“Besides, we both know things work much better if people do what you want not just because you say so.” Rapunzel looked abruptly southward. “Oh, my...seriously? Again?” 

Eugene cocked an eyebrow. “Let me guess, Mayans?” 

Rapunzel flopped onto her back and groaned. “When are those people going to learn that I'm not at their beck and call? Just because that ancient religion of theirs has a few provisions about calling down the favor of Kinish Ahau or Itzama by spilling a little blood doesn't mean they can use it as a celestial phone call!” 

“Isn't that what Christianity does?” 

“Yes, but the Mayans expect me to just show up, as though I were their maid!” 

“Are they trying to sacrifice someone again?” 

“Yes!” Rapunzel growled. 

Eugene groaned. “And they've learned that you show up every time they do that.” 

Rapunzel growled again. “Unfortunately, they've learned the wrong lesson. I swear to...Me...I'm going to have to smite someone.” She grabbed Eugene's face in both her hands. “Eugene, do you have _any_ idea how much I _despize_ smiting people?!” 

Eugene took one of Rapunzel's hands in his. “Yes. Yes, I do. It's one of the things I love about you. It shows you're a good and tender soul.” 

Rapunzel sighed. “I'm beginning to understand why Sol smote Sodom and Gomorrah. I mean, how else does a...Goddess...communicate to Her people that when She says 'no human sacrifice,' She means it? Isn't that why Corona has capital punishment?” 

“That's the theory.” Eugene shrugged. “It doesn't always work, of course, but fear of retribution is a millennia-old tried-and-true method of political control.” 

Rapunzel laughed. “Oh, Eugene, when did we become lawyers?” 

Eugene chuckled. “For me, it was when I started breaking laws for a living at age fifteen. For you...I seem to recall a few tirades your first year home following those tedious hours your parents made you sit down and learn Corona's laws.” 

Rapunzel groaned. “And then I promptly went about trying to simplify things.” 

“At which you were mostly successful, I might add. Which was one reason you were such a marvelous Crown Princess, an even better Queen, and why you'll be such a wonderful Goddess.” 

Rapunzel thwapped Eugene in the arm. “You're impossible.” 

Eugene chuckled. “I compliment you, and you thwap me in the arm and tell me I'm impossible.” He shook his head, then leaned over and kissed Rapunzel. “You're a wonderful, amazing woman and I love you very much, Rapunzel. So does everyone else.” 

Rapunzel sighed. “I hope so. Because now I have to go and possibly do some decidedly un-wonderful things.” 

Eugene grimaced. “And I suppose break's over for me, too.” 

Husband and wife exchanged another deep kiss. Then Rapunzel's form contracted into a small, golden orb of light and sped off southward. Eugene shook his head, then stood up. His life was definitely weird. 


	2. Chapter 2

Uxmal, Mexico  
April 26, CY 26, 2038 AD

Metrizcica Tzama forced one more tear from her eyes. It was the last one she would ever shed. Her energy was utterly spent anyway. Just seeing the way her parents had panicked when the High Priest had taken her from them had been enough to drain her. Yet she'd found the well of her spirit to be deeper than she'd thought. Even that had proven to be exhaustible.

She'd been brave. At least, she'd tried to be. She hadn't kicked or screamed or thrown a fit the way so many others had. Mostly, she'd just quietly cried, dragging the occasional ragged breath to calm herself while the tears had steadily trickled down her face to dampen the bright scarlet trim of her tunic. She'd hidden the random sob under the exertion of climbing the hundreds of steps to the summit of the Magician's Temple.

She'd also distracted herself, reciting the stories everyone told about the history of the place. She went over the same things everyone chanted during the sacrifices. Something or someone always had to be sacrificed in order for the sun to rise each day. It had been thus in the Ancient Days. And then Quetzalcoatlus had come from across the eastern sea, bearing another name, Cortez, and bringing with him a terrible judgment that had slain many. In its wake, he'd brought a new Way for Salvation.

But then, twenty-six years ago, the gods had again brought terrible judgment. Unlike the Great Flood which the Patriarch Noah had survived in the Ark, the Change had come suddenly and without warning. Many had died in the first hours as the great machines that had once moved people and goods across the world had suddenly stopped. They had fallen from the skies, crashed on roads, or been set adrift at sea. The sacrifices of the Ancient Days had been resurrected, or so her papa had said, supposedly to court the mercy of anyone who would listen.

It had started with the usual supplications to the Virgin Mary, St. Peter, and so on. When things had gone from bad to worse, people had, mainly out of desperation, begun to call upon the ancient Mayan gods. At first, there had been very little rhyme or reason to it, so the stories went. Ah Cilis the solar eclipse god, Ah Peku the thunder god, Bahalam the jaguar god, Bitol the sky god, Chac the god of storms, Kukulkan the sun god, Nanauatzin the Fifth Sun. Someone somewhere in Mexico believed one or more of those and other ancient gods to have been responsible for the Change and others still believed to have the power to bring relief from it.

As the years had passed, however, things had settled down. But some of the gods continued to be worshiped. Papa strongly suspected it had more to do with the political power held by the clergy than it did with whether or not anyone truly believed in the ancient Mayan gods. He'd seldom spared breath to say so, though Metrizcica had noticed that he was usually careful about who might have been listening. She thought her papa's outspokenness had something to do with why she'd been chosen. Not only was she to be the sacrifice, but also the ultimate punishment for her father's dissension. It wasn't fair, but what could she, a little girl, do?

So she lay, hands and feet bound tightly, leather cording cutting painfully into her flesh, on a slab of ancient stone. Its rough surface, deeply stained by untold rivers of blood shed upon it centuries before and then again since the chaos following the Change, pressed into her skin. She lay and waited, waited for the cold sting of steel that would spill her blood out and onto the rock.

She listened with closed eyes as the High Priest proclaimed whatever nonsense he and so many others believed would appease Nanauatsin the Sun God. Or was it the Sun Goddess? She'd heard rumors of that, rumors of a young, fair-skinned woman with piercing green eyes and hair the color of burnished bronze, who bore incredible power, spoke as one who had ultimate authority, and claimed to be the embodiment of the Sun itself.

Metrizcica wondered why she'd been chosen to give her blood...no, to have it forcibly taken from her. She'd tried to be a good girl, always a good girl. She'd said her prayers to the Virgin Mary. She'd read from her Bible every day. She'd obeyed her elders, even when her drunken uncle would hit her. And she never complained about anything...ever. She'd never even had her ears pierced, which she'd been told had been because her papa considered her too beautiful to mar. Maybe that was why she was being sacrificed.

The priest's words ended and Metrizcica tensed herself. The moments stretched into an eternity. She didn't want to die, but she did wish it would just be over already. Surely the end couldn't possibly be as bad as the waiting for it.

She heard an utterance of confusion. Then the priest's voice. “Who are you?” he demanded to someone Metrizcica couldn't see. “How did you get up here?” He sounded both surprised and angry. Good.

“I am Rapunzel, whom you would call Nanauatzin,” replied a young female voice. She spoke perfect Spanish, the local dialect. And she didn't sound out of breath as she would have had she just ran up the hundreds of steps to the top of the temple. She sounded extremely irritated and it made Metrizcica's hairs stand on end. “How I came to be here is not your concern.”

The priest grunted as though straining against something.

“You will look at me when I speak to you,” barked Rapunzel. “What gives you the right to spill this girl's blood?”

“The Sun God wishes it,” said the priest. His voice sounded even more strained, as though he were in pain.

“That's Goddess,” growled Rapunzel. “And I desire no such thing!”

Were the rumors true, then? Or was it some sort of trick? Metrizcica desperately wanted to look, but all her strength had left her. She heard a thump, a grunt, and the clatter of metal on stone. Then, “Little girl?” came the woman's voice from in front of her.

Metrizcica opened her eyes and found herself looking into a smiling face set with a pair of large, vibrant green eyes framed by shoulder-length orange-brown hair that shone like burnished bronze. “These won't be necessary.” The woman moved an arm and she felt the cords binding her hands and feet suddenly loosen and fall away.

Metrizcica blinked. Was she...being rescued? It looked that way, but she dared not let her heart believe it. For all she knew, the Sun Goddess had come to personally receive the sacrifice. But then why did she sound so offended by the very idea?

The woman, Rapunzel, placed a hand on Metrizcica's forehead. It felt soft, warm, and gentle, as though she genuinely cared. “You're going to be fine, little one. What's your name?”

“Metrizcica,” she replied.

Rapunzel chuckled slightly. “My, that's a mouthful.” She felt Rapunzel's arms thrust beneath her as the woman effortlessly lifted her off the stone. Metrizcica was eight years old and not exactly light. Yet Rapunzel lifted her as though she weighed nothing.

Metrizcica again found herself gazing into those large green eyes. “I have redeemed you, young one,” said Rapunzel as she turned to descend the stairs.

After a few steps, she paused and looked over her shoulder. “I'll deal with _you_ later,” she growled.

She turned back to Metrizcica. “As it was with Abram, Sarai, and Saul, I am minded to rename you as well and offer you an opportunity to be a part of something great and terrifying. What say you?”

Metrizcica was unsure what to think. She did know she didn't have the energy to resist, nor did she think she really had much of a choice anyway. So she said, “Si.”

Rapunzel smiled. “Then your name will henceforth be Arathisra, which means She Who Returns.”

Metrizcica...Arathisra...wasn't sure that was any less of a mouthful than her given name. But who was she to argue with the Sun Goddess?

A flash of something bright appeared in front of Arathisra's eyes. She looked closely and saw the wavy ceremonial blade protruding from Rapunzel's chest. She felt fear rise up within her once more. Yet Rapunzel didn't drop her. Instead, she shifted Arathisra's weight, reached up with a newly freed hand, grasped the blade, and yanked it out of her chest. Miraculously, there wasn't so much as a hole, let alone any blood.

Rapunzel whirled around. “Are you insane?” she roared. “You would attack your Goddess?” She thrust the blade out at arm's length. It began to glow, first red, then orange, then yellow, then white. Finally, it turned to liquid and dripped off of Rapunzel's hand and onto the stone. “I hereby put an end to this nonsense! You will stop all of this at once! This accursed tower shall be brought down so that no stone lays upon another!”

The priest yelled in anger and lunged at Rapunzel, his arms outstretched. Rapunzel caught him in the throat and he stopped as though he'd run headlong into a tree. He gasped several times, then began to curse.

“Silence, you mewling quim!” bellowed Rapunzel. Arathisra didn't know what that meant, but it didn't sound very nice. “Or shall I smite you here and now in front of this child? I'd rather not, but I will if you continue to task me!”

She squeezed slightly and lifted him off the ground. His legs kicked the air as his hands scrabbled futilely at Rapunzel's wrist, his eyes so wide, the looked as though they might fall out of their sockets. A slight twitch, and the man sprawled backward, arms flailing.

Rapunzel returned her free arm to its position beneath Arathisra and smiled. “You shouldn't have to endure this,” she said. It almost sounded like she was apologizing.

Rapunzel began to descend the long, steep stairway. Oddly, it felt like they were gliding rather than stepping. Either that, or Rapunzel was very good at controlling the usual bobbing motion associated with walking down stairs.

All the while, Arathisra gazed up into Rapunzel's great green eyes and Rapunzel smiled back at her. There was love in those eyes, love and delight. Arathisra had never seen such compassion in anyone outside of her own family. It gave her a warm, fuzzy feeling that slowly began to thaw her heart and she felt her strength returning.

After what seemed like forever, but was probably only a few minutes, they stopped. Arathisra heard voices. Wrenching her gaze away from Rapunzel, she could see her people bunched together like they always did during the sacrificial ceremonies. But there seemed to be a difference in their mood. No wonder. They were used to seeing the body of the sacrificed returned in the arms of the High Priest, limp and dripping blood, not still very much alive and carried by someone else.

Murmurs floated through the crowd as Rapunzel advanced toward them.

“Metrizcica?” It was her mother.

She saw her parents rush forward from the front of the crowd, tears flowing like rivers down their faces. She knew they were tears of joy, but also ones born out of unfathomable grief that she'd been told she'd never understand until she had children of her own. All the same, it hurt to see it.

“Metrizcica!” her mother cried, arms outstretched. Rapunzel released her into her parent's arms. They hugged her and kissed her and cried over her. They squeezed her arms and stroked her hair. It felt good.

Then they released her. She looked up as they turned their attention to Rapunzel. “Gracias!” they gushed. “Gracias, gracias! How can we ever repay you?” They were almost tripping over themselves.

“Por favor,” said Rapunzel, “first, please don't grovel. I find it disrespectful.”

Arathisra's parents stiffened a little, then straightened up, still visibly nervous. Her papa held out a hand and Rapunzel took it.

“It was my pleasure,” said Rapunzel. “Really.” She raised her voice and it carried wonderfully. “This whole human sacrifice thing is highly distasteful. Were it a meal prepared for me, I would not let it so much as touch my lips, nor would I lift it toward my mouth, nor dignify it with fork, knife, or spoon!”

That was quite the statement. Arathisra caught some motion of the corner of her eye, motion which became her friend Pedro. He stopped and looked up at Rapunzel. “Well,” said Rapunzel, “buenos dias.”

Another child, Arathisra's neighbor Maria dashed up to Rapunzel's other side. Soon, children began materializing from out of the assembly to crowd around Rapunzel, who stood there laughing in delight. Parents rushed out and tried to control their boys and girls.

“No, no,” said Rapunzel. “It's all right. Children are very precious to me. Let them come.” She made a beckoning motion.

Arathisra looked up at her parents. They smiled weakly, then nodded and she joined the others.

“I tell you all that unless you approach me in such a manner...” She touched several children on their heads, smiling and tousling their hair. “...with the same unbridled joy, trust, love, and enthusiasm that you see in these children, you will never share in the wonders I intend to bring about.” She turned to the children.

“Would you all like to hear a story?” she said.

“Si! Si!” they all cried.

Rapunzel knelt down on both knees. “Well,” she said, “then I'll tell you all one of my favorites, one my husband has told many times. This is the story of how I died. Oh, don't worry, it's actually a rather fun story. And the truth is, it really isn't even about me. It's about a girl named Rapunzel. And it begins with the sun...”

* * *

Arathisra was spell-bound. She'd never heard a story told quite like that. It was as though Rapunzel had lived it herself! The girl didn't know how long it had taken to tell the story. When she'd begun her climb up the temple steps, the sun had been directly overhead. She was certain of it. Never before had she been so aware of it beating down on her. When the story was over, however, she noticed the sun was maybe three diameters above the trees.

Rapunzel rose gracefully to her feet, then pointed to the pyramid. “Earlier, I said I would tear down this structure so that no stone rests upon another. Behold!”

A bright shaft of light lanced out from the sun and hit the temple. It was so bright, Arathisra couldn't look at it. Then a wave of heat surged out from it, followed by loud cracking and grinding sounds and other noises she couldn't identify. The heat and noise continued for what seemed like forever.

When it was over, Arathisra looked. Where the temple had been, a low, glassy mound glowed a dull red color. Steam wafted up from it, diffusing the glow from the mound.

Rapunzel placed her hands on her hips in the same self-satisfied way Arathisra had seen most of the grown-up women do. “There,” she said. “Just as my light reaches all the way to the ground, none of you need lift yourselves to the heavens to reach me. Nor must you ever sacrifice anything in order to cause me to rise each day. For as long as I remain in the heavens, never will there cease to be evening and morning.”

A glint of something metal flashed through the air. Rapunzel's hand moved so quickly, it was a blur. When it stopped, she held a throwing knife. She turned to gaze back toward the ruin of the tower. There, not six feet away, just beyond the knot of children, stood the High Priest. He held an arm outstretched and it was clear he'd just thrown the knife. How had Rapunzel caught it? And without looking? Perhaps she was Nanauatzin.

The children parted, shying away from the priest. Arathisra could feel the tension in the air.

Without warning, the priest lunged at Rapunzel. Arathisra didn't understand. He'd tried that up on the temple and had failed. Perhaps his anger had blinded him. Arathisra had seen that happen a lot, and not just when her uncle drank himself into fits of senseless rage.

Rapunzel grabbed the High Priest's huge, muscular arm and, with one hand, neatly flipped him over and tossed him effortlessly through the air. He landed on his back and lay there gasping for breath.

“Who...who are you?” said Arathisra's papa.

“My people call me Rapunzel,” said Rapunzel. “But you know me as Nanauatzin.”

Arathisra watched as the people began to bow.

“Stop!” said Rapunzel. “Do not bow to me. Not like that.”

“Then why have you come,” said Arathisra's mama, “if not to demand our supplication?”

“I do not require that. Only love and respect. All else follows from that.”

“But,” said another man--Arathisra recognized him as Juan, a known troublemaker from the other side of town, “Nanauatzin is to be a man!”

Arathisra rolled her eyes slightly. If there was a problem to be found, Juan always managed to find it.

“Says who?” asked Rapunzel.

Juan started to reply, but only managed to work his mouth soundlessly.

“I thought so,” said Rapunzel. “It doesn't matter anyway.” She pointed to the High Priest, still lying on the ground, struggling for breath. “See that man there? That is why I am here. I have come to bring down the strong man and to raise up the weak. I have come to bring unity...and division.”

She looked into Arathisra's eyes and held out a hand. “Are you ready?” she asked.

Arathisra felt warring emotions bubble up within her. She desperately wanted to go with Rapunzel. She didn't know why, let alone where they'd be going. But some inner voice told her that as long as Rapunzel was involved, everything would be fine. She was also terrified, though not remotely like she'd been while being led to the slaughter. It was...another kind of fear, a fear of the unknown, or so she thought. And she was sad to be leaving her family, possibly forever. Yet she knew the stories about Elijah. Was Rapunzel taking her to heaven? Maybe.

She turned to her parents. “Mama? Papa? I want to go with Rapunzel.”

Both her mother's and father's eyes widened in alarm. She hadn't wanted to frighten them, of course. Yet she knew they would be. They'd lost their daughter once already that day, but losing her twice? She didn't understand, not really. She just knew she had to go and that her parents were sad because of it.

“You...you can't!” said her mother.

“No,” said her father, “absolutely not.”

“But Rapunzel asked me. She asked me what I wanted. No one asked me to go up to the temple. I should be dead now. So now I have a choice and I choose to go with Rapunzel. Please?” She held her parents' gaze for a few moments before looking expectantly at Rapunzel.

“I won't force your hands about this,” said Rapunzel. “But your daughter is correct. She has the right to decide.”

“Please,” said Papa, “she is young. She doesn't know what she says.”

Rapunzel smiled. “Doesn't she?”

Papa shuffled his feet nervously.

“Don't make us lose her again,” said Mama.

“You haven't lost her yet,” said Rapunzel patiently. “So long as she remains in my care, she still won't be lost. Though she be gone from your sight, she will not be out of mine.”

Rapunzel looked into Arathisra's eyes. “Ya-Arathisra, what do you choose? Will you stay here, knowing what has happened this day, and grow up to lead a normal life? Or will you come with me and be shown the wonders of the universe?”

Metrizcica blinked. That was quite the offer. “Will I...go to heaven?”

“That will be entirely up to you. And it will be something to discuss later.” Rapunzel looked past Metrizcica. “And no, ascending to the heavens does not necessarily mean death.”

Metrizcica looked back to her parents, then to Rapunzel. “Will I...be able to...send messages?”

“Yes,” said Rapunzel, a smile on her face, her hand still outstretched.

“You called her...Arathisra?” said Papa. “Why do you call her that?”

“Your daughter has been redeemed. In the tradition of Abraham, Sarah, and Paul, I have given her a new name. In the language of Ingary, it means 'She Who Returns.'” She looked back at Arathisra. “And one day, you may return here. For I have designs on your people. You have the opportunity to be a pioneer. You are strong, ya-Arathisra. You have always been strong. Your ordeal this day has started you upon your path and should you follow it, you will grow stronger still. I have interesting things in store for you if you're willing...and if your parents are willing to allow it.”

Arathisra reached toward Rapunzel's hand, then paused. She tore herself away and ran to her parents. They embraced her tearfully. They cried, but not in the same way they had that morning when she'd been chosen for the sacrifice, nor in the way they had when she'd been spared and returned to them. She tore herself away from them and trotted back to Rapunzel.

“I'm ready,” she said. “Take me.” She placed her hand in Rapunzel's.

“I am pleased,” said Rapunzel. Then to Arathisra's parents, “Your sacrifice will not be in vain, for your daughter will be instrumental in saving us all from utter destruction. Find peace in the knowledge that I will keep her safe and return her to you in my appointed time.”

Rapunzel began to glow. A golden light spread out from her and surrounded them both. Then Arathisra felt like she was flying. Rapunzel's voice echoed in her mind, telling her of the wonders she was to see, knowledge she would learn, deeds she would do, things she scarcely would have believed. And her heart soared.


	3. Chapter 3

Des Moines, Provisional Republic of Iowa  
August 14, CY 26, 2038 AD

Heather Hearons looked up at a full moon. She really shouldn't be out so late at night. Who was she kidding? Of course she should! In her line of work, being up until the wee hours went with the territory. Being outdoors, on the other hand, was sure to piss off her boss. Not that she really cared about that. Sure, he'd slap her around, but she'd endured worse. She chuckled to herself. Worse...hrmph. What could possibly be worse than every single day since she'd turned twelve?

The bottom line was that she just had to get out. Not just outside, or even out of Des Moines, but out of her line of work. Basically out of her own life—short of suicide, anyway, and even that didn't seem so bad some days.

The trouble was, there wasn't really anywhere to go. Her evil over-pimp would find her. He always did. The last time she'd escaped, he'd threatened to kill her the next time. Well...maim and disfigure her, which for someone like her was basically a death sentence. And she knew he always carried out his threats. That was how he managed to keep Heather and her defacto sisteren under his thumb. Not that she believed he'd actually go that far with her, not when her body brought him so much money. But he would still do more than just slap her around, would probably make her wish for death. No, she had to escape for good. That meant leaving Des Moines. But how?

The city gates were always locked at night and the entire wall was always guarded. Nor were the sewers large enough for anything but a rat to pass. Whoever had designed the wall had apparently read “Les Miserables,” “Lord of the Rings,” or both.

Even if she were to make it to the other side, what then? She'd heard all the stories and knew them all by heart. How the Change had stilled all the machines and how hundreds of millions of people had starved to death. How some of them had turned to eating each other. How there were still wild men out there said to be more beast than man. How there were other cities like Des Moines, cites less welcoming of outsiders. How a weird religious fanatical group called the Church Universal and Triumphant had been spreading across the plains like the Moors and Saracens of old. And how dangerous it was between them. Yet there were also rumors of a place far to the west, a place once called Oregon.

History read that two centuries before, ox-drawn wagons had set out from the Mississippi River bound for Oregon, a land “flowing with milk and honey.” Thousands had undertaken the arduous journey west and scores had died along the way. Some decades later, there'd been a great war to the south of Iowa, then more wars across the great ocean to the east. Then the Change had come. All of that had been before Heather's birth.

Rumors from the west told of a collection of states where technology had been reborn, where people wielded magic, and where strange, supposedly alien beings lived among humans. They told of a mighty queen who'd shed her earthly form to become a being of pure energy and that she'd taken the place of the sun itself. And they told of a woman, clothed in golden light, who had begun to appear to people throughout the known world.

Heather wasn't sure what to think about that. Those stories were as strange to her as the ones of great flying machines that used to move people across the world in mere hours. Or the small, magic boxes that could display moving pictures and send letters thousands of miles in moments. Or the little squares that could play many hours of music through little wires one could stick into one's ears.

She'd have to risk all of that. She wasn't going back. She couldn't. She didn't think even a violent death could be as bad as being a so-called working-girl in Des Moines. At first, of course, it had been hell. But she'd thought it better than starvation. She'd been wrong.

Over the last several years, she'd been creeping inexorably closer to an escape...any escape. Each night, each penetration, nudged her that much closer. No, she'd never let them see the hate in her head. But she knew. And so it was that not an hour before, and wearing nothing but her underthings and a dark cloak, she'd crept out of her window, shimmied down the bricks, and dropped barefooted to the ground. It had been a miracle she hadn't broken something.

“Heather!” came a gruff, angry male voice.

Heather jumped, then swore to herself. Slowly, she turned around. She had no idea what to say. She hadn't intended to be caught. Who did? How long had she been standing there, staring at the moon, anyway? So she just glared at her boss.

He stalked over to her. She could have run, could have easily out-run him. She was young and lithe, he not so young and bordering on corpulent. That still wouldn't have solved the problem of Des Moines' wall, nor could she evade his hired muscle forever. But she couldn't move. He grabbed her arm. “What the f**k are you doing out? Don't you know you...”

“Shut the f**k up!” she snapped. She'd had it. She made up her mind right there that he'd have to kill her to get her back.

“What did you say to me, you f**king whore?”

She spat in his face. Of course she was a whore, but she hated hearing it. “Let go of me!”

He slapped her, hard, and she went down. Her vision exploded in what looked like white stars. She'd seen that before, mostly after vomiting, or with excessively rough customers, or with the occasional man who'd actually have the decency to bring her to orgasm, and had been told they were ocular migraines. It still hurt like hell.

She spun around and landed on her front-side, hitting her forehead and elbow, and skinning a hand and knee. Then he kicked her in the ribs, over and over. That hurt even more. He yelled and screamed at her. Maybe they were words, maybe they weren't, but they didn't cut through the pain.

She felt him kick her legs apart. It was bad enough when complete strangers had her. She had a few regulars, a couple of whom even pretended to show interest in her as a person. But above all, she loathed it when the boss “took his cut,” as the saying went. And as he pushed her skirts up, she was quite sure his entry was the last thing she'd ever feel in this life.

“Jesus, help me!” she cried out, though it was more of a whimper. She wasn't sure why she'd done that. She'd turned her back on God a very long time ago. She didn't expect anything...not really. A few people, roused from their slumber, might have peeked out their windows. The city's night watch might have come round the corner. But whose story would they believe? No doubt her boss, after he'd paid them off.

The next thing she knew, her boss's body weight lifted off of her. She heard a grunt of surprise, a loud thump, then another grunt of pain and some gasping.

She blinked, took in a breath, then gasped as a sharp pain lanced through her right side. She tried to raise herself, but her arm buckled and she collapsed onto her left side.

She looked up and blinked again. A young, fair-skinned woman stood in the moonlight. Her feet were bare and clean, her tunic pewter grey. Heather couldn't be sure, but the woman seemed to be glowing with a silvery light.

The woman held out a hand. Heather peered at it suspiciously. People tended to ignore cries for help. It was just too risky, or so she'd always overheard. Yet someone had actually come to her aid. Maybe miracles still did happen. The woman smiled, apparently undeterred by Heather's hesitation.

Heather heard a grunt, then footsteps approaching. Without looking, the woman swept a silvery arm sideways. Then she spun, the arm arcing overhead, effortlessly dragging something large along with it, which she brought crashing to the ground. In what looked like a continuation of the same motion, the woman planted a bare foot on it. Only then did Heather recognize the form of her boss, now lying on the ground under the woman's foot. How had she done that?

The woman glared at the boss. “I would not try that again if I were you,” she said flatly. “Ever,” she added, with a slight growl to it.

Heather felt a prickle creep along the hairs on her neck. Normally, she knew the difference between a prickle of apprehension and...well...it suddenly occurred to her that it had been so long since her hairs had ever stood on end in any other way. Yet what she felt was decidedly different.

The woman turned back to Heather and extended a hand again. “Now,” she said disarmingly, “where were we?”

Heather didn't know why, but she reached out. She paused, then placed her hand into the woman's.

The woman grasped it firmly, then began to hum. Heather didn't recognize the tune. In fact, she wasn't even sure there was one. But it made her hair stand on end in a completely unfamiliar way. Then her whole body began to tingle. It felt a little like losing circulation after sitting or sleeping on a limb.

The woman's music rose and fell, then rolled over itself. That was the best way Heather could think to describe it. Suddenly, the pains in her ribs, head, and limbs turned abruptly to strange tickles. She gasped, and felt her eyes widen. She tried to pull her hand away, but the woman held it in a vise-like grip. Her breath caught in her throat as a wave of something between pleasure and relief swept through her, the remnants of her pain evaporating like a late morning mist. Her whole body tensed, then her legs buckled beneath her.

The woman reached out another hand and caught her. “There,” she said. “All better.”

Heather blinked. She gathered her legs beneath her and heaved herself up off the ground, the woman pulling her up.

Heather found herself eye-to-eye with the strange silvery woman. She had a beautiful, kind face and a warm smile framed in long, dark hair that contrasted with her subtly luminous skin. There was something in the large, silver-green eyes that Heather hadn't seen in a very long time. Was it...love? She wasn't really sure she'd recognize it.

“How...did you do that?” Heather asked. Why had she said that?

“It's complicated,” said the woman. What did that mean?

“Who are you?”

“I am who I am.”

“Which means what, exactly?”

The woman smiled. “It means what it means.” That was cryptic.

“What are you doing here? Especially this late?”

“You cried out.”

Heather furrowed her brow. “No. I just said...” Her voice trailed off as she realized what the woman meant. “Are you...an angel?”

The woman smiled. “More or less.”

Heather was beginning to wonder if she was going to get a straight answer about anything. “I suppose I'm in your debt?”

The woman shrugged. “That depends entirely on you.”

Heather drew her hand away from the woman's and gingerly touched her side. Her ribs weren't even sore. She should have expected to be one solid bruise the next morning. Not that she was any stranger to bruising.

“Well...thank-you. I'd offer to repay you, but...I don't have much. Actually, I don't have anything.”

“You have yourself.”

Oh, no...she was _not_ suggesting what Heather thought she was suggesting.

“Um...I...no.”

The woman raised an eyebrow. “I assure you, it's nothing like what you think I mean.”

How could she know that? Then again, there were only so many ways that could have been interpreted.

“Then...what do you mean?” What did she want anyway? Heather wished she would just get to the point. It wasn't like she had a deadline, but still.

“Where are you going?” That seemed random.

“Anywhere but here.” That much was true.

“I can help you with that.”

Heather raised an eyebrow. “And just how do you suggest you get me...us...out?”

“The same way I got in.”

Heather resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She nodded at the boss. “What about him?”

The boss seemed to have regained his air and had both beefy hands wrapped around the woman's ankle, pushing upward with what appeared to be all of his strength. She looked down. “What about him?”

“You... _are_ going to have to let him up eventually...aren't you?”

The woman nodded.

“Then what? Won't he come after us?”

“I expect he'll try.”

“F**king right I will!” growled the boss.

“Do not use profanity in my presence, young man,” said the woman irritably. That was...different. The boss was in his thirties and she couldn't have been more than twenty. Unless she really was an angel.

Heather was beginning to think she was dreaming. Except that dreams didn't hurt. So maybe it was a hallucination?

“I'll f**king...”

The woman scooted her foot upward, jamming her toe against the underside of his jaw. “What did I just say?” she growled.

The boss just grunted, flailing his legs, and pounding the woman's leg ineffectually with both fists. He might as well have been pounding on a metal post. Curiously, the woman's calf wasn't even shaking. Even the boss' hired brute squad moved when hit, if only a little. But it was as though the woman's leg was carved from stone or forged of steel.

Heather looked up. “You're going to kill him...aren't you?”

“It's crossed my mind,” said the woman flatly. “And if smiting people didn't turn my metaphorical stomach so much, he'd be dead already. But that does raise a very good question.” She glared at the boss. “What _do_ I do with you? If I release you, you'll just go back to enslaving women and I won't have that. I could take you to Antarctica...or Siberia...or Arabia. But that would be a death sentence, though I'm quite sure the young lady here would lose very little sleep over it. I could still smite you right here and now, but as I said, I rather hate smiting people. Even if I were to leave nothing but dust, it would lead Des Moines' law enforcement on a fruitless manhunt which I strongly suspect would result in the implication of at least one innocent person and I won't have that either. I could, however, deprive you of your manhood.”

That made the boss twitch. Heather could see it in his eyes.

“Or,” said Heather, “I could go get my...sisteren...and one of us could kill him.”

The woman glanced at her.

“What?” said Heather. “It's crossed our minds, too, you know. More times than we can count.”

Rapunzel cocked an eyebrow. “Many who live deserve death. And many die who deserve life. So it has been since Cain killed Abel.” The woman looked back at the boss, then again met Heather's eye. “I'm holding him down.”

“I thought you said you could...how'd you put that...smite him?”

“Oh, I can. In fact, I could sing his molecules apart. I'd just rather not.”

Heather cringed. “That sounds...unpleasant.”

“I think 'excruciating' is the word you want. Even that would be somewhat of an understatement and an arguably disproportional response. All things being equal, the punishment should fit the crime.”

Heather considered the woman's words. What punishment could possibly fit the crimes her boss had committed not only against her, but against dozens of other women and who knew how many others of either gender? Perhaps that was the whole point. Or maybe it wasn't the point at all.

“Fine,” said Heather. She hesitated, then quickly moved over to the boss' flailing leg, grabbed it, reached into his boot, and extracted the small knife he always kept there. She knelt roughly on his near arm and pressed the blade's tip against the side of his neck. A bead of blood rose up at the knife's tip, then trickled down his neck. It would be so easy to nick his jugular, so satisfying to watch his life bleed out the way he'd bled so much life out of her and others. She pushed, then paused.

Suddenly, she yanked the blade away, whirled around, and jammed it into a log, swallowing a curse. “I...I can't,” she said, eyes downcast. She felt so ashamed, nearly as much as for being a prostitute. She wanted her boss to die. Or did she? She certainly hated his guts! She was so confused!

“There's hope for you yet,” said the woman.

At length, Heather turned around. The woman still stood there, her foot on the boss, her hand outstretched, and a smile on her face, a silvery halo surrounding her.

Heather hugged herself self-consciously. “You were going to let me do it...weren't you? I mean, you wouldn't have stopped me.”

“I didn't think you'd do it. And I was right.” The woman tapped Heather lightly on the sternum. “In here beats a heart of gold. It's been...bruised and broken, to be sure. And just as surely, fixing the heart and soul is profoundly more difficult than repairing the body. But there it is.”

Heather deflated and burst into tears. She felt a hand on her shoulder, pulling her. She let herself be pulled and quickly found herself in a gentle hug, ignoring the boss' blows on her legs.

The woman released her, then bent down, grabbed the boss by the throat and heaved him to his feet. “I'll be right back,” she said. “Don't go anywhere.” A blaze of silver light flared up and surrounded both the woman and the boss. Abruptly, it contracted, rose quickly into the air, then hurtled away toward the west, leaving Heather standing there, blinking in the moonlight.

She looked around, and located the cloak she'd somehow lost in all the commotion. She picked it up and wrapped it around herself. It wasn't particularly cool. Summer nights rarely were. But she somehow felt...not violated, but maybe...its opposite. Whatever it was, it made her feel weird.

Heather pondered that for what felt like forever. Suddenly, a thought popped unbidden into her mind. It was crazy, the craziest thought she'd had in a long time. She reached between her legs and felt for...her eyes popped open. Her...hymen was...intact. But that was inconceivable! She couldn't possibly be a virgin again. That just didn't happen... _couldn't_ happen.

Surely she'd mis-felt. But she knew all her parts intimately. It...was kind of in her job description. Still, she wished she had the small mirror she kept for...self-inspection. In her line of work, one had to be one's own doctor. She groped again. Then she stood up straight and tipped her had back. She closed her eyes and breathed. “Oh, Heather,” she said aloud, “what the hell have you gotten yourself into?”

She stood there for a few more moments. Now what?

“You're whole,” said the woman.

Heather jumped and opened her eyes. The woman stood there as before...alone.

Heather's eyes widened, then began to tear up. “Wha...wha...wha...” Her worlds failed her and she dropped to her knees and began to cry.

After a moment, she felt a firm, gentle pressure against the underside of her chin. She let her head tip back and again looked into the woman's eyes. She knelt down in front of her, then reached out and took Heather by the shoulders, gently raising her back to her shaky feet.

“You're whole,” repeated the woman.

“I...I'm not worthy,” Heather stammered.

The woman smiled. “Ya-Heather? Please stop groveling. All this, 'yes, Lord,' 'we're not worthy, Lord' grows a bit tiresome. So please don't. The sun shines on the just and unjust alike. Worthiness is subject to my judgment. I bestow my favor on whom I will. And I choose to bestow it on you.”

Heather cocked her head. “How...how do you know my name?”

“It's complicated. But if you come with me, I will show you a new purpose and a new world you scarcely would have dreamed.”

Heather considered that for a moment. She wanted to go. She still had no idea who, or what, the woman was, only that she was full of compassion and in possession of great power. She also knew what awaited her should she return to her brothel. And she knew the plight of her sisteren, especially the young ones.

She looked sharply at the woman. “Okay, I'll go with you, but...”

The woman put her thumb and forefinger to Heather's lips, effectively silencing her. “In one hour, meet me where the moon touches the earth. Be there with whomever and whatever you will. I will not promise you will ever return. But if you do, you will not be the same.”

Heather felt the pressure fade from her lips and with it, the woman in front of her. In moments, she was alone in the moonlight. She looked around, even knowing she would see nothing and no one. She breathed in, held it, then breathed it back out. She'd been given a second chance and offered a second life. She didn't know where it might lead, but she did know she couldn't squander it.

But just what would she do next? And what did that mean, 'where the moon touches the earth?' Furthermore, how would she explain to her sisteren where she'd been? She'd come bursting through the front door, then declare she'd been visited by an angel, who'd promised her a way out of Des Moines. Heather rolled her eyes at the thought. Yeah, that'd go over like a lead balloon.

And what of the boss? What had become of him? The woman had never said and Heather hadn't been allowed the opportunity to ask.

There was really nothing for it. She'd have to grab life by the lips and yank. She really had no other choice.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she lit out back toward the brothel. Her bare feet pounded against the pavement, her cloak flying out behind her like a horse's mane. She yanked the front door open and stormed into the front room. The oil lamps cast the usual, familiar yellow-orange light about the modest front room.

One of the girls, Suzie, looked up from her reclining position on a nearby couch. “Heather?” she said. “I thought you were upstairs. What...”

Heather stepped over and put a hand over Suzie's mouth. She leaned over to the other woman's ear. “I was,” said Heather quietly. She removed her hand.

“How'd you get out there?” Suzie asked quietly.

“I'm escaping...and so are you.”

Suzie chortled and pulled back to look Heather in the eyes. “Have you bumped your head? You know there's no escape.”

“Yes, there is. I don't know how, but we're all getting out of here.”

“But the boss...”

“Is indisposed.”

Suzie snorted. “No one...um...indisposes of him. You do remember what happened to the last person who tried that?”

Heather did remember. It reminded her of some of that stuff in the rare, coveted crime drama novels she and a couple of the others had occasionally smuggled into the brothel. She smiled a broad, predatory grin. “Until now,” she declared. “Get your things.”

“What?”

But Heather ignored Suzie's protest. She bounded up the stairs, her bare feet padding on the bare, worn wood. The building had, so she'd been told, once been a downscale urban hotel.

Like so many other buildings in Des Moines, the place had been vacated in the wake of the Change. Many of those, particularly skyscrapers built since the mid-twentieth century, remained vacant. Others, like the one Heather had previously descended and now ascended, had been remodeled after a fashion. Which was to say that, in the absence of an occupier and in the chaos following that horrible first year, the one Heather was glad never to have seen, some random person had simply declared it to be theirs. Then they'd taken much of whatever had been there and sold, bartered, or repurposed it.

Most such people chose buildings that didn't need much work. If someone had wanted to open a shop, they'd appropriated something that had once been a shop. If they'd wanted an inn, they'd chosen a former motel. Or sometimes they'd turned a mansion into a bed-and-breakfast inn. Auto shops had become stables. Metal shops had become smithies. And so on.

Heather reached the first floor, turned right, and sprinted down to the end of the dimly-lit hallway. Sconced torchlight reflected off of a sign marking a sealed-off Emergency Exit. She knocked on the last door. There was no answer. She knocked again.

“Season? Laura?” Heather called. The two girls, twelve and ten respectively, shared the same room. Their boss hadn't been forthcoming on why. Apparently some of their customers got off on having someone watch. There was still no answer.

Heather turned the knob and shoved. The door, like several others in the building, was sticky. It burst inward and Heather had to grab the edge to keep it from slamming against the wall.

Season and Laura sat next to each other on their double bed, knees drawn to their chests. Heather scurried over to them and took one of their hands in each of her own. “Are you okay? Did they...penetrate you?” The boss had been muttering for weeks about having one or the other of them “broken in,” as he put it.

“No,” said Season quietly.

“They just made us...” Laura began.

“No, no,” interrupted Heather, “that's enough. You don't have to do any of this any more. You want to get out, don't you?”

The girls blinked at Heather, looked at each other, then back at Heather. They nodded vigorously.

“Get your things together and meet me downstairs. We're getting out of here...all of us.”

She stood up, spun around, and dashed out of the room. She worked her way back up the hall, repeating the same thing: get your stuff together, we're leaving. Most of the other women made some sort of protest, invariably based on fear of being caught. Heather ignored those.

At last she arrived back in her own room. The oil lamp still burned just like she'd left it. She opened the small drawer on her nightstand, pulled out the small hand mirror, hiked up her skirts, and positioned herself. Reflecting the light up into her nethers, she peered into the mirror like she'd done time without number. She stared. “Shit,” she said softly. As she'd concluded outside, her hymen was indeed intact.

She almost dropped the mirror. Instead, she let her skirts fall back around her legs, leaned back, closed her eyes, and exhaled. She still thought it was impossible, but the evidence was clear. But could she tell anyone? The others would think her insane. She could show them, but what would they think then? Some of them might think she'd been faking her profession. But a few of the others had been part of at least one orgy and had personally observed her being penetrated.

No, she'd just have to ignore it for the time being. It wasn't important anyway, at least not in the short term. She'd deal with it later. Getting everyone out and to wherever they were going was her first priority. Most of the time, she hated having seniority. But now that she actually had something positive to contribute, it wasn't so bad. But how many of the others would go along with it?

Heather gathered up her own possessions, which were precious few, and wrapped them in a cloth to form a small bundle. She extinguished the lamp and trotted back down the hall. Reaching the lobby, she was gratified that everyone was there. Though most of them had some measure of fear on their faces. She couldn't blame them.

“Come with me if you want to live!” she said as she made for the door. Then she paused and regarded her sisteren. “Oh, for God's sake, put some clothes on! I said we're getting out of here and I mean it!”

“I thought you didn't believe in God,” said Suzie.

“Just...just get dressed and come with me, okay? If you really want to stay...no, don't stay. I really have a bad feeling about anyone who does.”

Suzie sat down hard on a couch. “Heather, have you gone mad?”

“Maybe. But I aim to get away from all this. And if I die doing it, then I'm still away from it. And don't any of you tell me you like it here either.”

“Heather...”

“Is it worth the risk?” Heather looked around at the faces staring at her. “All of you...is it worth the risk to get the hell out of this? If you could do anything else, and I mean anything, wouldn't you? I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm grabbing this bull by the horns. We have less than an hour to gather up whatever we have and get ourselves to where the moon touches the earth.”

“And what's there?” asked Shasta, one of the girls from the foot of the main stairs.

“No idea.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Suzie, “you want us all to drop everything, gather up all the belongings we don't have...” She hefted a bundle similar to Heather's. “...and follow you to someplace that doesn't exist, just for the hell of it? The boss'll shit a brick!”

Heather exhaled. “I told you, he's indisposed. And I'm pretty sure he's not going to be...um...disposed any time soon. Not that I wouldn't like to be a fly on the wall to see his reaction to a vacant building. But the sooner we get going, the sooner we can evade his pricks. And you know how they are about showing up at random. Besides, I see you've all made up your minds anyway.” She gestured to several of the small bundles each of her sisteren held.

“So,” said sixteen-year-old Shasta, “we're going where now?”

Heather frowned. “Where the moon meets the earth.”

“Okay,” said Suzie, “you said that. What the hell does it mean?”

“No idea.”

“And just who told you this? I assume you didn't just pull it all out of your ass.”

Heather blinked. “Um...actually...I have no idea who she is or what she wants. All I know is that I'm supposed to go with her and bring as many of you with me as I can. And I don't know where we're going either, but it can't possibly be as bad as this.” She gestured around her.

Suzie raised an eyebrow. “Say what?”

Heather exhaled, then blurted out everything that had happened. “The bottom line is that if you want to stay here and continue to let men ride all over you and worse, that's your business. If you want out, here's your chance.”

The women looked at each other and at Heather.

Laura and Season stepped forward. “We're coming with you,” said Season.

Laura nodded vigorously. “We don't wanna get penetrated,” she said.

“Okay,” said Suzie, “but if this is all for naught, I'm personally going to...to...I don't know, but I swear you won't like it.”

“Fair enough,” said Heather.

She led the others out the door and out into the street. They all skidded to a stop.

“Now what?” Shasta asked.

“Shit,” said Heather.

“You don't know where you're going, do you?” asked Suzie.

“Not so much, no.”

“You're going to get us all killed, aren't you?” said Kennerly. Her twin sister Camille nodded in assent.

“I don't wanna die,” said Laura.

Heather raised her hand pensively to her chin. Suzie started to interrupt, but Heather put up her hand. “Shh! I'm thinking.”

Where the moon meets the earth. That still didn't make much sense. Were they to wait until the moon set? No, the woman had said _where_ the moon met the earth. So on the westernmost wall? Or on the highest building? Yes...yes...the Financial Center was the tallest surviving structure in Des Moines. It stood on the southern side of Downtown. It wasn't exactly nearby, so they'd be cutting their deadline pretty close.

“Follow me.” Heather broke into a run.

The others clattered behind her. That was about the best she could say for them. None of them had any experience traveling in the dark. Furthermore, their footwear—much of it pre-Change high-heels—made more noise than anything except maybe hobnail boots, shod horses, or men in plate armor. And Jane kept coughing like she'd been doing for days, sometimes spitting up blood, a couple of the others barely keeping up at all.

By the time they clattered into the square some two hours later, Heather felt like a bundle of nerves. She couldn't believe they hadn't attracted any attention. It wasn't like the streets of Des Moines were milling with people in the middle of the night. Nor were they in the industrial district where they would surely have encountered workers either between shifts or on their lunch breaks. Still, there were twenty-three of them, and it wasn't like the Court District was even remotely next door to their erstwhile domicile!

Heather skidded to a stop, nearly stubbing a bare-footed toe on an unnoticed drain grate. Kendra ran right into her, but she barely noticed. Fruit trees, planted when most of the pre-existing concrete and asphalt between Vine St. and the Courthouse and 5th and 7th Sts. had been torn up shortly after the Change, cast dark shadows. Sheep slept at the edges of open, grassy spaces between blocks of trees that stood where cars had once parked.

Financial Center loomed over it all, gleaming white in the moonlight, a silent and lifeless monument to a world that had violently and quietly died twenty-six years before. The moon itself, still bathing most of the square itself in silvery light, hung barely two lunar diameters above the low buildings and elevated roadways to the west.

Heather's heart sank. They were too late!

“Now what, O fearless leader?” Suzie asked sarcastically.

Heather wasn't sure how to respond. Hell, she didn't even know what she was doing. She was playing it all by ear at best, for God's sake! Her mind kept returning to that phrase: where the moon meets the earth. She still didn't know what that meant, but something told her it was important. She needed more time, time she didn't have.

“Um,” said Heather, “hide.”

“Are you f**king nuts?” said Suzie.

“No, Suzie, I'm not having sex with almonds, pecans, or any of that.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Just...” She didn't bother to finish her sentence. Instead, she started across the square toward Terminal Tower.

Heather remembered visiting the Court District as a girl. The trees had grown up considerably since then. But some things shouldn't have changed. She darted across a street and into the shadow of a fruit tree. She cringed as the others clattered along behind her. She again fought the urge to snipe at them to be quiet. If anyone had been following them, they'd have been caught long ago. Still, it annoyed her that they were attracting so much potential attention.

They padded across the thin grass beneath the trees, nearly tripping over several sheep. Where there were sheep, there was bound to be a shepherd somewhere nearby. They clattered across another paved walk, then more grass, then another walk. After clattering across a third walk, Heather had had it. She whirled around.

“Okay, that's it!” she hissed. “Take off your f...damn shoes!”

She saw her sisteren look at each other in the dimming moonlight “But...” began Shasta.

“But what? Look,” said Heather, trying to keep her voice down, “I know those are the only shoes most of you own. But they make too much f...damn noise! And if I'm right about all of this, you won't need them where we're going.”

“Which is where?” asked Suzie sharply. “You still haven't told us a f**king thing, except 'not here.' Now...”

“Suze,” Heather snapped. “For the last time, I have no idea where we're going. I don't even have the slightest idea how we're going to get out of Des Moines, either! So stop asking!”

“F**king a, Heather...”

“And stop that, too!”

“What the hell's gotten into you?”

Heather looked at Suzie for a full ten seconds. “No idea. I think...that woman got to me. Don't know how.”

“And none of us knows who she is, either. And 'I am who I am' isn't very f**king helpful.”

Heather recognized Suzie's tone that said she was on the verge of exploding. “Okay,” said Heather, “look, I'll get you some answers. But let me remind you that you chose to come with me. You could have stayed back there. Which means you want out.”

Suzie softened slightly. “Damned right we want out. But something that looks like a plan would have been nice.”

“I know.” Heather turned and crossed the last bit of grass before taking a few steps across the sidewalk, then out into the street. She heard a slight clatter and whirled around. She made a cutting gesture across her throat. She hoped the others could see it in the waning light and hoped they knew what she meant by it.

The noise died down as they crossed the street, and stepped up onto the opposite sidewalk. Heather trotted across the expansive courtyard toward the front of the tower, the balls of her bare feet tapping softly on the concrete. She heard muffled grunts and groans behind her.

“Babies,” she muttered under her breath. She wasn't sure she could blame them, though. While it was true each one of them regularly endured several different kinds of beatings, their feet were generally not a favored recipient and the lot of them had been making a living on their backs and knees anyway.

The moon cast long, deep shadows, throwing the entire front of the building into blackness. She glanced eastward toward a horizon just hinting at morning twilight between the buildings. Then she plunged into the darkness and fumbled her way up the front steps. She stubbed a toe twice, grunting a curse each time. She made toward one of the half-dozen sets of doors, their tall archways merely shadows within shadow.

She didn't even know if she could get in at all, let alone what she and the others would do once inside. She collided with a plate glass door. Damn, she wasn't used to those. She quickly recovered, groped in the dark, found a sturdy metal bar at waist level and pushed. At first, nothing moved. She drew back slightly, and threw her weight against it. It budged a little. Was she going to have to break it? Even if she'd been so inclined, she didn't know if she could.

She remembered her mother telling her about something called shatter-resistant glass. She didn't know what that meant, only that it was probably one of those pre-Change marvels and certainly stronger than regular glass. Many of the other buildings in the area had sustained damage during the first Change Year. A lot of it was from looting, some from vehicle crashes. But she didn't recall Terminal Tower as being one of them. On the other hand, it had been more than a decade and a half since her last visit and her memory was a bit fuzzy.

“Want some help?” asked Shasta from behind Heather.

She jumped slightly. “Yeah,” she said. “On three. One...two...three!” The two women threw their weight against the door.

It moved a few inches with a loud squeal. “Again,” she said. Again she and Shasta drove their shoulders against it and again it moved with another squeal. A third shove brought a screech that echoed loudly through the space beyond. Heather squeezed through the gap and into the dark interior. She shuffled into the darkness, the others following behind her.

Once the sound of feet had stopped, only their breathing filled the dead stillness. It felt like a tomb and Heather wasn't entirely sure it wasn't. Rumor had it that more than one of the high-level employees—called Executives, she thought—of the companies that had occupied space in the tower had killed themselves in their own offices shortly after the Change.

Some versions said they'd been trapped up there and had died, committed suicide, or been eaten. Others said they'd later returned to do the deed. Heather didn't really want to know which version if any was true.

“Now what?” whispered Suzie.

“I'm tired,” groaned Season.

“Me, too,” said Laura.

Heather had to admit that the excitement was wearing off and she could feel herself fading. “Maybe...we should all take a nap.”

“A nap?” said Suzie.

“That's not a bad idea,” yawned Camille. A nearly simultaneous yawn sounded, probably from her twin sister Kennerly. That yawn, like the voices, footfalls, coughs, and wheezing, echoed in the cavernous space around them.

“Pull up a floor,” said Heather.

Suzie groaned in disgust.

“What if there are...you know...dead bodies?” said Shasta.

Heather sniffed the air. Nothing met her nose but dust and rat shit, neither particularly new. But there was no decomp. “Smells fine...ish.”

Heather groped across the room and came to a wall. She sat down. “Over here,” she said quietly.

“Right across from the door?” Suzie protested.

“Seriously, Suzie? Do you really think anyone's going to be looking for us in here?”

Suzie exhaled. “Fine. But if the shit hits the fan, I'm making you eat it.”

“Suits me.” Heather laid down with her back against the wall, an arm propped under her head. Rustling told her the others were doing the same. She didn't know how long she'd lain there in silence before sleep took her.

* * *

Heather Hearons awoke to the sound of muffled screaming. She sat bolt upright. That in itself turned out to be a mistake. Her arm was well and truly asleep and tingled with the pricks of a thousand phantom needles as she worked it back, forth, and around. One foot had lost circulation, too, and threatened to rebel as she staggered to her feet. She slumped against the wall as she fought her disorientation.

Then it all abruptly flooded back into her mind, her whole body snapping instantly alert. A commotion outside drew her attention through the front doors of the building to its front steps. She attempted a sprint across the lobby, ignoring the questioning grunts of her waking sisteren.

She reached the door and wriggled past it, a few footsteps on her heels. She blinked in the morning light, willing her eyes to adjust. Then her heart both sank and leaped at the same time.

The scuffle that had awakened her resolved itself into a small group of soldiers harassing young Season and not-so-young Judith. They'd also drawn a crowd. Heather's attention fixed on the pair, while her peripheral vision registered a lot more than had been apparent the night before.

She'd forgotten about the public market that filled the square one day each week. It would figure that, with her luck, they'd have landed smack in the middle of the very sort of public spectacle she'd been hoping to avoid.

The soldiers were undoubtedly security or law enforcement assigned to the weekly fair. Such gatherings had the reputation of being potentially rife with all sorts of disorderly conduct, both discrete and not. Each soldier wore the standard boiled-leather armor set with metal washers and bowl-shaped helms and carried the standard crossbow in-hand, shetes at their belts, daggers on their right sides, and who knew how much hidden weaponry.

In contrast, Heather and the girls barely wore much at all and had maybe a dozen nail files, three pair of tweezers, two pen-knives, and thirty hair pins between them.

Heather barreled down the steps, barely avoiding a collision, her sisteren running into her.

“Oh, you have _got_ to be shitting me!” Suzie grunted in Heather's ear.

“Well, well, well,” said the lead man, a Lieutenant from his insignia, “what have we here?”

“Looks like a party to me, sir,” said the Corporal to his right.

“It's none of your damn business,” said Heather.

“Whew!” exclaimed the first man. “Testy, aren't we? 

“We're not here to cause trouble. Just...let them go and we'll be out of your...hair.”

The Lieutenant circled Heather, looking her up and down. One didn't have to work in her field at all to know what was going through his mind.

“You know,” he said, “if I didn't know better...and it just happens that I do...you all are, shall we say, working girls?”

“That's none of your business either,” said Heather.

The Lieutenant ignored her. “Now, there's really only one punishment for whoring.”

Sounds of displeasure floated through the crowd. While Heather and her sisteren worked in what was usually called “the Oldest Profession,” she had it on good authority that historically, people like her were rarely more than simply tolerated anywhere in the world. From time to time and place to place, it had actually carried the death sentence. Even in Des Moines, it was technically highly illegal, though nearly impossible to enforce. That didn't bode well. Things were about to get really ugly, she could feel it.

The crowd was starting to get a bit riled. She stole a few furtive glances and saw people holding rocks and clubs and random objects. The soldiers leveled their crossbows. Heather closed her eyes. She didn't envision that sort of end. Was that what the woman in the moonlight had meant? Was death her solution for leaving Des Moines? It would at least be a release. Hopefully it would be quick.

“Ah!” said the Lieutenant. “A newcomer.”

Heather's eyes snapped open. The woman from the previous night stood in the bright sunlight. She seemed to be glowing slightly. It must have been some trick of the light. That, or some sort of hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation. But she could sense an abrupt mood change in the crowd. A few inquisitive murmurs drifted among her sisteren.

He stepped over to the woman and circled her, too. “And just who might you be?”

“If I were to tell you that, you'd respect my commands only out of fear of retribution, and that's if you believe me at all.” She smiled in a way that made Heather's skin crawl. “Let's just say I could easily be your worst nightmare.”

“Feisty. I like that in a whore. I'll...”

“Do you always,” interrupted the woman, “address heads of state with such irreverent mockery?” Her voice carried quite well.

The Lieutenant laughed, then stepped up to the woman, leaving mere inches between them. At what Heather guessed to be six-foot-three, he towered over the woman. Yet she seemed completely unconcerned with his overwhelming height and weight advantage. On the other hand, given what Heather had seen her do to the boss, there was a distinct possibility she could single-handedly wipe the walls with the men surrounding her without breaking a sweat.

“Are you the angel?” blurted Season.

The woman turned to look at the girl and giggled. “Strictly speaking....yes,” she said.

The Lieutenant grabbed the woman's arm. She looked back at him and cocked an eyebrow. “You will unhand me,” she said flatly.

The man laughed. “I think not,” he said.

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the woman planted a hand on the man's chest, hopped slightly, then drove him down onto his back, coming to rest in a slightly crouched position. “That's better,” she growled.

All the other men leveled their crossbows at the woman. She seemed undeterred.

“You know,” said the Corporal, “an attack on the Bossman's guard is tantamount to an attack on the Bossman himself.”

“I'll keep that in mind.” The woman turned and began to trail her finger across the pavement. No, actually, she was writing on it. With her finger.

“And technically,” continued the Corporal, “whoring's illegal.”

The woman looked up. “I don't allow it either.” She went back to her writing.

“You don't have jurisdiction here,” said the Corporal.

“Don't be ridiculous,” said the woman. “I have jurisdiction everywhere.”

“Punishable by death,” added the Corporal. “Though we do recognize a good thing when we see it.”

Jurisdiction everywhere? What did that mean?

The Lieutenant had by then regained his feet. Without warning, he delivered a savage kick to the woman's ribs. She didn't budge. It was as though the soldier had kicked a marble statue. He cursed like he had, too, visibly in pain but trying to hide it.

“You really shouldn't do that,” said the woman without looking up.

The crowd was growing more agitated. Violence was going to break out at any moment, she could feel it.

“Whomever among you,” said the woman, her voice carrying clearly above the low-level din, “has neither broken nor bent the law, never evaded consequences, never disrespected your parents or gone against their wishes, never ignored the gentle whisper of the conscience informing the heart, whichever of you has done nothing deserving of punishment, come forward and cast the first blow!”

The ensuing silence was almost as deafening as a thunderstorm. Moments seemed to last forever, the tension so thick, Heather could have carved it with a spoon.

To her astonishment, people began to drop their tools of destruction and, one by one, drifted away. The Lieutenant, looking like he might be trying to crawl out of his own skin, glanced from the ground to the woman to the girls, then to his men. With a wordless gesture, they marched off away from the tower.

The woman looked up, then rocked back on her heels. “Is there no one else?” She rose to her feet and gazed about for a few moments. Then she threw her arms wide and repeated more loudly, “Is there no one else?!” She turned to look Heather in the eye.

“I...I guess not,” said Heather.

The woman smiled warmly. “Then neither do I condemn you.” She reached out toward the girls. “Come, leave all this behind forever.”

Heather reached out and took one hand. Season trotted up and took the other, gazing up at the woman's smiling face. Laura took Season's other hand and Camille and Kennerly took Laura's free hand and each other's. Shasta took Heather's free hand. One by one, the others linked hands, Kendra keeping a death-grip on Jane, who still looked like she was about to collapse at any moment.

“Where the moon meets the earth?” said Suzie as she reluctantly took the last hand.

The woman winked. “A metaphor.”

Then a golden light spread outward from her, quickly surrounding all of them. Heather felt her feet leave the cold pavement. Air rushed around her. Were they...flying?

She didn't know how much time elapsed after that, but she was very glad she'd bothered to pee before leaving Des Moines. At long last, she heard the woman's voice as though she were speaking in a bare room. “Everyone, bend your knees and hold on. Your landing...is going to be a bit rough.”

A bit rough? What did that mean? No sooner had Heather formed the thought, than the yellowish light faded and she was falling through the air. Seconds later, her bare feet hit something solid. She grunted and sprawled onto something hard and cold, her legs flying up into the air. More grunts and cries, as well as several thumps, met her ears.

Heather recovered and found herself in new and unfamiliar surroundings. The sun was noticeably lower, yet it still felt like morning, the light quality reinforcing her impression.

Heather and her sisteren picked themselves up off of a grey flagstone covering an extensive patio. Its perimeter was set with pedestals, supporting alternating cauldron torches and some sort of small glass orbs. Chairs surrounded round tables distributed more or less evenly about the patio. A pair of spires, a darker one visible behind a much lighter one, towered above them. Behind the spires, a forested ridge rose up, stretching away toward her left. A broad valley spread out in the other direction, a ribbon of river just visible in the near distance. Over it all hung a greying sky, the sun diffuse through the clouds. If they were in even in Iowa at all, it must have been the very edge of it. She could count on one hand the number of times she'd even been outside of Des Moines, though.

“What the f**k?” said Suzie.

Heather shrugged, then rubbed at a sore shoulder. “No idea.”

“Let's be more ladylike, shall we?” said a familiar female voice.

Several people stood a dozen paces between Heather and the nearest tower. One of them looked remarkably like the woman who'd somehow brought them all from Des Moines to wherever they were and had unceremoniously dropped them what felt like at least a good four feet. She wore her orange-brown hair tied back in a ponytail gathered at the nape of the neck, her eyes were the same strong green, her build the same, right down to her bare feet. Only her clothing was different, a muted green knee-length linen tunic, rather than the shin-length soft gold-shot lavender dress.

“You!” said Suzie irritably. “What the f**k was that?”

The woman cleared her throat. “What did I just say?” she asked sternly.

“Oh, come on!” said Suzie. “Ladylike? Are you f**king nuts?”

“No,” said the woman flatly, “I do not have sex with almonds, pecans, cashews, or anything else with a shell.”

Suzie blinked. “What?!”

“Be the change you want to see. We're here to offer you that change.”

“That happened twenty-six years ago,” said Shasta from the floor, her hands cradling an ankle. “Didn't work out so well.”

“I'm not talking about that. If you want to be ladies, and I think you do, then you must act like it. That sort of change happens in one of two ways. From the inside out, or from the outside in.

“Ladies, welcome to Corona. We hope you'll find your stay here pleasant.”

A pair of women and a man scurried forth and began tending to the various scrapes, bumps, and sprains Heather's sisteren had sustained in their on-arrival tumbles. A chorus of “ow” and “dammit” and suchlike followed.

“Shouldn't be hard,” muttered Kendra, rubbing an elbow.

“No,” said the woman, “I expect you're right.”

“Did you _have_ to...drop us?” glowered Kendra.

The woman grimaced slightly. “We do apologize for that. Couldn't be helped.”

“Why the f**k not?” blurted Suzie.

The woman raised an eyebrow. “Miss...?” she prompted.

“Susan,” said Suzie darkly. “Susan Morrow.”

The woman nodded acknowledgment. “Miss Morrow, you and your companions should all know that we here in Corona take a rather dim view of the use of profanity. It weakens the mind and cheapens the soul. Disagree if you must, but we do insist that you mind your manners in our presence.”

“But we're whores!” said Suzie. “We don't have...”

“Were,” corrected the woman. “And you do have manners if you so choose. And we hope that you do.”

“And who the f...um...hell...are you?”

The woman met her gaze. “Crown Princess Sophia Fitzherbert,” she said evenly.

“What happened to 'I am who I am?” asked Heather.

Sophia laughed. “Is that what she told you?”

“She? You mean...”

“Don't worry about it,” Sophia interrupted casually. “People mistake me and my mother for each other all the time. Oh, but she does have a flair for the dramatic.”

Heather blinked. The woman who'd taken them from Des Moines, by means Heather was at a total loss to explain, didn't look even remotely old enough to have a daughter as old as Sophia. Either the years had been especially kind to both of them, or there was a lot more going on than met the eye.

“But who is she really?” asked Heather. “I mean...assuming you're telling the truth.”

“She's my mother.”

“Yes, you said that. No disrespect or nothing, but I have no idea who she is, or anything.”

“And yet you trusted her enough to let her bring you here.”

“She...seemed the trustworthy type.”

“Indeed. She's Rapunzel Fitzherbert, Queen of Corona.”

Heather wasn't entirely sure she'd heard correctly. “I'm sorry...Rapunzel?”

Sophia nodded.

“As in, Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair?”

She nodded again.

Suzie groaned.

“Is there a problem, Miss Morrow?”

“I don't know where to start,” said Suzie.

Another woman--who looked enough like Sophia to have been a sister, but with her hair tied much higher on her head and a conspicuous baby bulge under a soft orange linen tunic, and comfortable-looking slippers on her feet--wrote something on a clipboard. “Fair enough,” she said.

Suzie frowned.

“This is my daughter Catherine,” said Sophia. “She'll be overseeing your orientation.”

“Right,” said Catherine. She swept an arm to indicate their surroundings. “If you'll all take a seat, I'd like to go over a few things.”

Heather wasted no time sitting down. It felt good. The air filled with pattering feet and clattering chairs as the other girls moved to do the same, a series of muted thumps following as their scant belongings landed on table and floor. “Orientation for what?” she asked.

“We'll get to that. First, everyone please sit up straight.”

“What if we don't?” said Suzie. She was certainly in a mood.

Catherine locked eyes with Suzie. “You'll find good posture to be highly conducive to what we intend to teach you.”

“What?”

“Good posture makes it easier to learn certain things.”

“Like what?”

“Combat.”

Heather sat up straight and Shasta bolted out of her seat. “Is _that_ why we're here?” she blurted. “To be...arrow fodder?!” she shrieked.

“Um...no,” said Catherine flatly. “Please sit down. I'll go over that, too. Suffice it to say, arrows will be irrelevant...and obsolete.”

Shasta slowly lowered herself back to her seat. “Irrelevant? I'll remind you of that when there's one sticking out of your chest...or your mother's...or your grandmother's.”

Catherine stared at Shasta. “Duly noted,” she said flatly. “Now, I'd like to get all of your names.” She proceeded to go around, taking everyone's names, birthdates, a little family history, and known ailments and writing them on her clipboard.

“What about Jane?” asked Heather, nodding to the woman who'd passed out, but seemed to have recovered to a point and was being helped to a chair.

“She'll be fine,” said Sophia, “eventually. In the meantime, what has my mother told you about why you're here?”

“Not much,” said Heather. “Actually...she's been rather cryptic.”

Sophia tittered slightly. “You'll get used to it.”

“And where's Corona anyway?” asked Shasta.

“Oregon,” said Heather.

“Which is where?” said Shasta.

Catherine gestured to another woman next to her, one dressed in what looked like a long robe. That woman made a couple of hand gestures.

Suddenly, a map of Iowa appeared in mid-air. A red dot showed near its northeastern corner.

“Earlier this morning,” said Catherine, “you were all in Des Moines.” The red dot flared up slightly.

Then Iowa shrank and another outline appeared, with Iowa still clearly marked a little east of center. Another red dot appeared near the northwest coast.

“You are now here,” said Catherine.

“You're shitting us,” said Kendra.

Sophia cleared her throat.

“Sorry,” said Kendra.

“No, Miss Anderson,” said Catherine, “we defecate upon you not.”

“What?”

“That's what that means. It helps to think about what you're actually saying.” She nodded and the woman made another gesture. The map zoomed in on the dot and another shape appeared, one that looked like what Heather remembered from the few times she'd seen a map of the United States.

“This is Oregon...or, rather, the area once called that. It's now made up of several sovereign states. Corona, Bearkiller, MacKenzie, Corvallis, Ingary, Rogue Valley, Central Oregon Ranchers Association, Warm Springs.” Dots appeared, identifying those general areas. “The United States of Boise controls much of eastern Oregon and two-thirds of Idaho, with New Deseret claiming southeastern Oregon, including some of what Boise claims, and most of adjacent Utah, while we control much of adjacent Washington. All high-level political stuff. Rather a headache, really.

“Anyway, should you choose to remain with us, all of this and more will be part of your training.”

“You're not...holding us here against our will?” said Kendra.

Sophia tittered. “Oh, goodness, no! Why would we do that?”

“Because we're whores?”

Sophia exhaled. “No, you _were_...that.”

“But...that's all most of us know how to do.”

Kendra was right about that. Heather took mental inventory. Most of them had entered the profession many years before, often shortly after reaching puberty. None of them had spent much time doing or learning anything useful with respect to a trade. It had been household chores and then, just when they would have been old enough to study as apprentices, or go to work at a factory, mill, or even begin military service, they'd been pressed into sexual slavery for one of several unfortunate reasons.

More than half of them had simply provided vessels for men's urges. But a few of them had certain specialties. Camille and Kennerly could finish a man without even touching him and it was whispered that they were so good at it as to still be virgins. Season and Laura attended men who had a thing for the very young. Fortunately, they were both still virgins, though the boss had been talking for weeks about having Season “penetrated,” as he'd put it, something he'd been apparently itching to do himself. Suzie specialized in BDSM. A couple of the girls were known to have diseases and specifically serviced customers who also had them. And Dawn was an extreme nymphomaniac who was doing it because, in her words, she may as well get paid for it.

“And we're prepared to help you with that,” said Sophia. “We'll go over it in detail tomorrow after breakfast.”

“We get breakfast?” said Season.

“Of course. And lunch, and dinner.”

“Really?!”

Sophia smiled. “Really. We take our people very seriously, especially those who are our guests.”

“Guests,” said Suzie. “Don't you mean prisoners?”

Sophia cocked an eyebrow, but otherwise ignored the question. “Now, you'll all receive food, decent clothing, housing, a good bath, and medical care.”

“We can take care of ourselves.”

“Oh, really?”

“Really.”

“You have mononucleosis. Most of you have vaginal bruising, some of it rather severe. Four of you have syphilis and one has HIV. One of you is borderline diabetic from a damaged pancreas...blunt-force trauma most likely. Several of you have tapeworms. A few of you have yeast infections. Half of you have bad and or missing teeth. All of you are severely malnourished and have multiple vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Three of you are pregnant, one of you with triplets. Miss Brooks has stage-two cervical cancer. And Miss Cobb has terminal esophageal cancer. That's just the beginning. So tell me, Miss Morrow, how's all that working out for you?”

Suzie glowered.

“Um,” said Heather, unable to contain herself, “how do you know all of that?”

“It's my business to know,” said Sophia. “It's...a bit of a burden...the silvery cloud with the dark lining. All rather complicated, I assure you.”

“And by 'food,'” said Shasta, “you mean...gruel?”

Catherine shrugged. “If you'd prefer. Though we were thinking of something more substantial. For now, we've arranged for a few finger-foods to be waiting for you in your rooms. That should do until lunch in a few hours.”

A couple of the girls started to cry.

“What are you trying to pull?” said Suzie.

Sophia smiled. “We're not your enemy, Miss Morrow. And we have no ulterior motives, diabolical plots to take over the world, or any of that. On the contrary, we're trying to save it.

“In addition, as of this moment, you are no longer prostitutes. My mother won't stand for it, neither will my father, nor will I. We didn't pull you out of Des Moines just so you could continue to sell your bodies somewhere else. We're prepared to teach you to do something else and we'll go over that this afternoon. Otherwise, if anyone asks, you're trainees in areas yet-to-be-determined. Everyone Mother brings here has a past. You are not to discuss it. People tend to judge each other by their pasts and that will make your clean slates that much more difficult to achieve.”

“Now, Hayley here...” Catherine nodded to another woman in some sort of lightweight, form-fitting trousers. “...will take each of you to your respective quarters. She'll make sure you're bathed, fed, and clothed. You'll each receive a full medical examination tomorrow.

“Except for you, Miss Cobb. You need immediate treatment. You too, Miss Brooks. So I'd like you two to go with Agatha here.” She nodded at another woman in a knee-length tunic. “Another half-hour won't kill you, but I'd rather not push it.”

“Wait,” said Heather, “just...how terminal is she?”

“Without intervention?” said Sophia. “Miss Cobb would be dead within the week...Miss Brooks in three months.”

Jane and Lynn looked like they were about to panic.

“Fortunately,” continued Sophia, “we're prepared to intervene.”

“At what cost?” Heather exhaled. “Look, I don't mean to be a bitch or anything, and I certainly don't want Jane or Lynn to die. But...I got them all into this.”

“And you feel some amount of responsibility.”

Heather nodded.

“We understand that.”

“Then you also understand that I can't just sit here while you up and decide that you're going to do whatever it is that you're going to do which you've still been too vague about.”

“Point taken. Agatha will take Miss Cobb and Miss Brooks to a hospital where they'll be treated for their cancer.”

“Which means what exactly?”

“We're going to heal them.” Sophia looked at Lynn.

“You can do that?” said Lynn. “I've heard about cancer. There's supposed to be no cure for it.”

“For most of the world, that's true. Fortunately for you, there's us.”

“What's all this going to cost us?” said Suzie.

“Nothing. You're...an investment.”

“In what?” said Heather. “You still haven't told us why we're here.”

Sophia smiled. “I like you, Miss Hearons. You're quick. Among other jobs, we'll need crews for our warships when we take to the heavens.”

“Oh, I get it,” said Suzie. “You expect us all to sacrifice ourselves in some damn war.”

Sophia raised an eyebrow. “It's that, or die horrible deaths once our enemies arrive to destroy us. Everyone dies of something, Miss Morrow. The question is how, when, and why. Besides, the point is not to die for your country, but instead make the other guy die for his.

“So, after you're all fed, bathed, shown to your quarters, and brought back here once you've changed clothes, we'll go over that some more.”

Jane began to cry, then coughed up another dribble of blood. She'd been doing that for weeks, and been growing progressively weaker. Naturally, the boss had given her beatings over it. Otherwise, no one had known what was wrong with her. The leading theory had been a bad stomach ulcer.

“Your medical examination,” continued Catherine, “will also include screening for magical ability. It is vitally important. If you're found to be a maga...a magic-wielder...you'll be in extremely high demand and we very strongly urge you to undergo training. The survival of Earth and everyone on it depends on how much magic we can bring to bear both in our preparations here at home and on the battlefield. But trust me, though, when I say that you will want to do this.”

“Wait,” said Suzie. “Magic? Seriously? Assuming there is such a thing, what are we going to do with it, card tricks?”

“Heal your friends, for starters,” said Sophia.

“Uh-huh,” said Suzie dubiously.

“I don't care what they do with it,” said Lynn, “but if it cures me and Jane, I'll do whatever the hell they want me to do, including shovel horse shit all day for the rest of my life.”

“Now, now,” said Sophia. “We have that covered anyway.” She gestured to Agatha, who walked over to Jane.

Agatha and Lynn helped Jane to her feet and mostly carried her, each arm around a shoulder, across the patio and down the stairs.

“What if I'd rather not?” asked Dawn.

“Please be more specific,” said Catherine.

“Um...what if I don't want to leave that life?”

Sophia took several steps in Dawn's direction and pensively tapped a finger on her chin. “Hmm,” she said. “I see.” She peered at Dawn for what must have been a full ten seconds. “Yes...I may have a solution for you...one that does not involve continuing with your erstwhile occupation.”

“But...”

Sophia held up a hand. “Let's just say that I think you'd both find the arrangement much to your liking.”

“What arrangement?”

“We'll get to it after lunch.”

“Now,” said Catherine, “this could take a while, so I'd like you to hold your remaining questions until we reconvene. In the meantime, I've prepared some reading material for all of you. I'll have it brought up here after you've all returned from your quarters.”

“But,” said Shasta, “I...I can't read.”

It was true. More than half the girls were illiterate and most of the other half largely so. Heather and a couple of others had tried to teach them, but erratic customer visitations made regular sessions nearly impossible, not to mention how vehemently the boss had frowned on it.

“Hmm,” said Catherine, making a note on her clipboard. “Yet,” she added.

A murmur floated around the patio.

“You mean...you'll teach us?” said Shasta.

“It's mandatory,” said Sophia.

“For...everyone?”

“Yes. Every resident of Corona is required by law to learn to read and write proficiently in their native language and to understand at least one other. So, yes, we'll teach you. That and more.”

Heather swore Shasta was going to cry. She'd desperately wanted to learn, but had been just as badly beaten over it.

“If you'd all follow me, ladies,” said Hayley, “we'll get started.”

Heather noticed she had an unusual accent, one she hadn't heard before. She made a mental note to ask about it. They all rose from their places and, followed Hayley across the patio and down the stairs.

“We're really not ladies, you know,” said Shasta.

“Be the change you want to see,” said Hayley over her shoulder.

“Huh?”

“You can be a lady if you want. We all have a past, but that doesn't mean you have to let it control you.”

Hayley led Heather and her sisteren through a door at the base of what she called “the Dark Tower.”

“This,” said Hayley over her shoulder, “would probably be the part where I share the history of the place. But the truth is, Castle Sparkle-Pony isn't really old enough to have much history. Not like in Europe where everything's...”

“Wait, wait,” said Suzie. “Did you say, 'Sparkle-Pony?'”

“Yes, Miss Morrow, I did.” Hayley led everyone down another corridor. Glass orbs hung from the walls every dozen or so feet, each emitting a strange, bright chartreuse glow.

Suzie laughed. Maybe her mood was improving. “Who would name a castle 'Sparkle-Pony?'”

“That would be the Crown Princess.” Hayley giggled. “We all agree it's rather a silly name. But no one had any better ideas. Though anything's better than the old one.”

“Which was...?” asked Heather.

“Todenangst.”

“Sounds...dreary.”

“It's German for 'death-anguish.' Ah, here we are.” Hayley looked at her clipboard, then at the door to her left. She turned the knob and the door swung easily inward. She turned back and read off four names.

“Our cells?” asked Suzie.

Hayley smiled. “Of course not. This is a dormitory. It used to be a barracks, but we remodeled some years back. The Queen insisted we'd need it like this. And she was right. We think you'll agree.” She stepped into the dark room, tapped on something and said, “Ilahe!” The room abruptly filled with a greenish-yellow light.

Gasps floated around the women.

“What...how...?” stammered Shasta

Haley grinned. “Magic!”

“Uh-huh,” said Suzie dubiously. “Still don't buy it.”

“You will. You're all taking your first steps into a larger world,” said Hayley. “Right, in you go. Things should be self-explanatory. Leave what you're wearing on the floor by the door and we'll have someone come by later to take it to laundry. I'll be back in a couple of hours.”

Door by door, Haley repeated the procedure. A few doors down, she called Heather's name. She, Season, and Laura stepped into the room.

“Miss Cobb will join you later.”

“Really?” said Season.

“Really.” Haley turned and led the dwindling group to the next door. With twenty-three of them, two of whom were elsewhere, and with four people to a room, it hadn't taken long. Yet the corridor seemed to stretch much further than than the six rooms allocated to Heather and her sisteren.

Heather closed the door with the click of a latch. She frowned, then twisted the knob. The door swung easily inward and she closed it again. “Huh,” she said.

“You thought it was gonna lock on us, didn't you?” asked Laura.

“Kind of, yeah.”

The room wasn't large, maybe ten by twenty feet. It was a bit smaller than their old rooms back in Des Moines, but clean and cozy. Two bunk beds stood against opposite walls. Two dressers stood between their ends and the walls. Two small desks, each with two chairs, sat beneath a high window. Two large area rugs covered swaths of the floor.

“Are these for us?” asked Season, holding up a garment. It was a tunic that fell to just above the girl's knees.

“I guess so.”

“Food!” squealed Laura.

Season tossed the garment back onto the bed and trotted across the room to a small table. Heather smiled. The two girls were practically vibrating. A small platter held strawberries, three types of cheese, cherries, small purple berries, and dark crackers.

Heather picked up a small card next to the platter and read it aloud. “Hood strawberries...Tillamook cheeses...cheddar...pepperjack...Swiss...local cherries...salal berries...buckwheat crackers.”

“Whoa,” said both girls. “They really said this is for us?”

Heather nodded. “Uh-huh.” She set the card down and they three of them tore into the food like rabid wolves. It was delicious! In fact, it was the best food she remembered. Not that it would have been difficult to improve on the days-old stuff—stale bread, moldy cheese, half-rotten fruit, flat beer--she and her sisteren had been eating for years.

She was so hungry, she almost forgot to chew. “Let's save some for Jane,” she said between bites. They left a quarter of it.

“Didn't they say something about a bath?” asked Season.

“Hmm,” said Heather. She looked around, then walked across the small room to a doorway. It was dark inside. She groped around and found a small bump on the wall. She tapped on it like Hayley had and said, “Ilahe!” The space immediately lit up with the same green-yellow glow as the main room.

Heather immediately recognized it as a bathroom, not unlike her old one in Des Moines. It held a basin with the same strange curved pipe over it and a large mirror mounted on the wall. On one side sat a large, white porcelain object with water in it. On the other side was what looked like a box with a glass door and a pipe sticking out of the wall about seven feet up.

She recognized it all as standard bathroom fixturing. None of it had ever done anything, of course, unless one considered draining to be something. So she really didn't know what any of it was supposed to do. She stepped to the basin and twisted one of the knobs. Water gushed out of the curved pipe. She twisted the knob back and the water stopped. She repeated it again and again.

“What is it?” asked Season from behind her.

Heather looked at Season in the mirror. “It's...water on-demand.”

“Whoa,” said Season and Laura together.

Heather tried the other knob with the same results. She let it run for a minute, just watching. Soon, steam began to rise from it. She touched it and pulled her hand back. She gasped.

“Somethin' wrong?” asked Laura.

“It's...it's hot! Girls, we have hot water on-demand!”

“No way!” the girls said together.

Heather turned the water off. “Uh...yes, way. I don't know how they did it, but they did.”

She stepped over to the glass-walled closet, reached in, and twisted one of the knobs. Water came out of the wall-mounted pipe. She waited for a couple of minutes, then turned it off and turned on the other one and again waited. After a couple of minutes, steam wafted up. “ _YES!_ ” she shrieked triumphantly.

“More magic?” said Season.

“Could be.” Heather looked over her shoulder. “You two go first.” She glanced about. On the counter by the mirror sat a small ceramic dish and a bar of soap. A small bottle of something almost clear sat next to it. She opened it and sniffed. It smelled like soap. Towels sat folded on a wire rack secured to the wall. She stepped out into the room and let the girls shower. “Yell if you need anything,” she called over her shoulder.

“Okay,” they responded.

Heather picked up her bundle of belongings from the floor and arranged them on a shelf. Like her other sisteren, she didn't have much. A few novels, a battered hair brush, worn-down nail file, a couple of changes of clothes, and a few odds and ends. The clothes smelled. She tossed then onto the floor against the opposite wall, then stripped off the ones she was wearing and tossed those on top of the others.

She sat down naked and just stared, her mind alternating between blankness and tumult. After a while, she looked up to see both girls padding out of the bathroom. Each was wrapped in a towel and otherwise dripping. Heather smiled to match theirs. She stood up and strode over to them. “Now, dry off, put your clothes with mine, and get dressed. I'll be out in a bit.”

“Okay,” they said.

Heather ducked into the water closet. The girls had left it running. The bar of soap sat on a small shelf. She ducked into the stream. For several moments, she just stood in it. It was heavenly! Warm water cascaded over her body, washing who knew how many years of grime off of her skin. She grabbed the soap and lathered it all over herself. A limp cloth hung on a hook fixed to the wall. She grabbed that and scrubbed...and scrubbed...and scrubbed.

Heather eventually turned the water off and emerged from the bathroom, rubbing vigorously with the large fluffy towel. That felt almost as good as the shower had. She felt clean, truly clean, for the first time in as long as she could remember, possibly in her whole life. She could die right now a very happy woman. She stopped.

“Jane!” said Heather.

Jane Cobb stood smiling in front of the open door. Season and Laura beamed at Heather, then at Jane, then back at Heather.

Heather wrapped her towel around herself, took the few steps across the room and hugged Jane, who hugged her back. “You look a lot better,” said Heather.

“Yes,” said Jane, “much.”

“What did they do? I thought cancer was incurable.”

“Um...not sure. They...did magic on me...or so they said. Lynn, too. All I know is that it hurt like hell and now I feel fine.”

“If you want something that feels _really_ good...” Heather proceeded to tell Jane about the hot shower. She smiled as her friend's face lit up.

A short while later, Jane emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in her own towel. “Oh, Heather,” she gushed, “I think I've died and gone to heaven.”

Heather laughed, then pointed at the plate with the food she and the girls had left for her. She watched as Jane forgot about everything else and attacked it.

“Okay,” said Jane, “ _now_ I've died and gone to heaven.”

“Have you, now?” said Heather as she handed Jane the remaining tunic.

Jane shed her towel, then slipped the tunic over her head, then sighed contentedly. After a few moments, she sniffled, then began to cry.

Heather wrapped her arms around Jane while Season and Laura hugged her from other directions.

“What's wrong?” asked Laura.

“Oh, nothing,” said Jane through her tears. “It's just...so overwhelming!”

“Isn't it?” said Heather.

After a minute, Jane recovered and wiped her face. “They said I'll start experiencing flu-like symptoms in a day or so and that when I do, I'm supposed to report back to the infirmary for observation. Something about resetting my DNA.”

“What's DNA?” asked Heather.

“I'm not sure. But it has something to do with cancer and what they have to do to make it go away. They said they had to repair all my genetic errors...whatever that is. Sort of an all or nothing thing. And that, in turn, is supposed to prolong my life...a _lot_.”

Heather and her friends pulled up chairs and sat there for a while, not saying much.

“So now what?” asked Jane at last.

“They're supposed to come and get us, then take us back to the patio for some sort of orientation.”

“And lunch!” added Season.

Jane blinked. “Then what was that?” she asked, nodding toward the empty plate.

“A snack,” said Heather, “I think.”

“ _That_ was a snack?” Jane let out a low whistle.

“I know. That alone was more than we often eat in a day. Girls, I have a feeling we're going to like it here. I have no idea what they're going to have us all do, but I have a very good feeling about it.”

Heather had Jane stow her own things, which she could count on one hand, on another shelf. “What about our clothes?” asked Jane.

“They're going to launder them for us. Frankly, I don't care what they do with mine. I'd happily burn them myself.”

A short while later, a knock sounded at the door.

Heather walked over, reached for the knob, then paused. “Yes?”

“It's Hayley,” came the reply. “It's time.”

Heather opened the door on Hayley's smiling face. Some of the other women stood in the hall behind her. As near as she could tell, they all wore the same kind of linen tunic she herself did, right down to the same muted sage green.

“To turn off the lights,” said Hayley, “tap on it and say, 'thandon.'”

Heather walked to the bathroom and did so. It occurred to her that she actually understood what that and 'ilahe' meant. She didn't know how, nor could she translate the words. She simply understood them. She let Jane turn off the main light and they all stepped into the hall.

“Um,” said Season, “does the door lock?”

“We're working on that,” said Hayley. “That spell's a bit trickier.”

“Spell?” said Suzie.

“It's magic, Suze,” said Heather. “Don't ask me any more than that. It's pretty cool, though, isn't it?”

Several of the others laughed. Hayley chuckled. “Operating lights is one thing. Restricting access is another.”

“What's wrong with keys?” asked Suzie.

“Nothing. It's just that there's some debate over whether or not conventional locks are the best solution. Fortunately, security isn't nearly as much of an issue as it was under Protectorate rule, or even before the Shift.” Hayley chortled softly. “Which is rather ironic, considering it was a police state and Corona isn't. It's just that...well, let's say naer-do-wellers have a very hard time getting away with anything here.”

“Why?” asked Shasta. “I mean, not that I'd be complaining, but...how?”

“My husband's family has a lot of power. Not just political power, either. But... _power_. Believe me, you don't want to be on their bad side.”

“And...just how do we avoid that?” asked Kendra nervously.

“Don't be...pricks, is the word her Royal Highness uses. It's not that complicated, really.”

“So...all we have to do to get along here is...be nice?”

“More or less,” laughed Hayley.

“Whoa,” said Season.

“Ah, here we are,” said Hayley as she stopped at the bottom of a familiar stair.

Heather gazed up toward the patio and frowned. Murmurs floated among her sisteren. From below, the patio looked...not entirely solid. Light shone through all the gaps between each of the large flagstones that formed the patio floor. But Heather couldn't see any supporting structures. No beams, pylons, ropes, or anything. Even if it were hanging from something around the perimeter, there should have been something beneath the center stones. As near as she could tell, the whole thing, all forty by a hundred or so yards or so of it, floated in mid-air.

“What is it?” asked Hayley.

“Um,” said Heather. She wasn't quite sure how to ask her question.

“What's holding it up?” blurted Laura.

“You like that do you?” said Hayley brightly. She grinned at Laura. “It's magic!”

Laura giggled in a particularly girlish way. It did Heather's heart good to see her and Season relaxing like that.

“Really, Miss Hayley,” said Season, “what's holding it up?”

Hayley smiled at Season. “Technically, it's Countess Hayley. And I'm serious. It really is magic.”

Season cocked her head. “Like the lights?”

“Different spell, but, yes, same sort of thing. Shall we?” Hayley gestured to the stair.

Heather noticed that wasn't held up by anything either. Its long, broad slabs hung in mid-air just like the patio stones. She pushed on the end of one riser. It didn't budge.

“You were expecting it to move?” asked Hayley.

“Well...sort of. This magic stuff...it's...”

“It's hard to wrap your mind around, isn't it?”

A chorus of “yeahs” drifted around Heather's sisteren.

Hayley smiled again. “I know exactly how you feel. Really, I do. Before the Shift, I didn't think there was any such thing as magic either. But since then? Well, let's just say my horizons have been greatly expanded. Each time we bring new people to Corona, I get to relive my own start down that path. It's both wondrous and terrifying.”

Heather tipped her head back and laughed. She wasn't sure why. Maybe she just felt like it, or maybe it seemed like the thing to do at the time. She shook her head and trotted up to the patio, her sisteren on her heels, leaving Hayley below. Heather was halfway across when she skidded to a stop. Several of the others bumped into her and into each other. 

Three people stood a few yards from the top of the stair, one of whom she recognized as Catherine. The second was a man who bore a family resemblance to Catherine. The third appeared to be a servant. What really drew her attention, though, were several large, unfamiliar animals.

Three were smaller, their bodies the size of a beagle. They were curious creatures with mossy-looking fur—if it was fur—large, stiff frills to the rear of their heads, long, flexible necks, and even longer tails which whipped back and forth in a manner both feline and canine. They kept rearing up on their powerful hind legs, then dropping back to all fours. Each posture seemed natural enough to the point that Heather wasn't sure which was their default. They were energetic, whatever they were.

A fourth, however, was enormous, bigger than a draft horse, even. It stood naturally on its massive hind legs, towering nearly twice the height of a man. Its large fore-limbs were each the size of her own leg. Both feet and...hands, she guessed...bore three toes and a thumb, all tipped with sturdy claws. Its head looked a little like a sheep's, but with heavier jaws, and eyes mounted a little more forward. It was covered with olive, russet-streaked fur that was a few shades lighter on its underside. Heather's attention was transfixed.

The smaller animals bounded forward, acting a lot like dogs.

A couple of Heather's sisteren, including Laura, screamed. Several others yelped in alarm.

“What the f**k is _that_?!” blurted Suzie.

Heather rolled her eyes and cringed. The smaller animals checked their advance and whimpered slightly. The large animal growled. Catherine and the man with her frowned.

“Must you?” said Catherine flatly.

Suzie exhaled. “Sorry. Habit.”

“Please work on it.” Catherine turned her attention inclusively. “The rest of you, please don't be alarmed. They're not as dangerous as they look.” After a pause, “Well, yes, actually they are, but you don't have to be afraid of them.

“Ladies, I'd like you to meet my uncle Frederick...” She motioned to the man, who nodded politely. “...and my kairina Shorlthi.” She motioned to the animal. It, too, nodded politely. “She's a lothnella.

“The others are furlitae. As you might suspect, they're...not from around here.”

The furlitae resumed their advance, but more cautiously. They stepped from woman to woman, eying each of Heather's sisteren and sniffing each from toe to face, the tips of their fleshy snouts twitching like a horse's muzzle.

At last, each animal stopped next to one of the girls, nuzzled her in a curiously feline manner, cooed, sat down at her feet, and began to purr.

Catherine giggled. “You have been chosen.”

“Um,” said Season, gently stroking the fur-that-wasn't-fur of the animal that sat purring at her feet, “chosen for what?” Then she added, “She sure is pretty.”

“Yes, yes they are. They like you. They'll be your companions...for life.” At the few soft murmurs, Catherine continued. “Usually, we give people a choice about things. But sometimes...sometimes our circumstances choose us. We don't know why furliti gravitate toward their chosen people. Please don't reject them.”

“I like her,” said Season. Then she looked at her new companion, which looked back at her. “Are you a her?”

The animal blinked.

“Yes, Miss Conlan,” said Catherine, “all three of them are female.”

Season knelt down and wrapped her arms around the animal. “Do you have a name?”

“Not yet. They're only recently weaned, so it will be up to you to choose one. You'll know what her name will be when she responds to it. What you need to know now is that they really don't behave like dogs or horses, but they're smarter than both. So be gentle with them until we have time to go over things with you one on one.”

Season rested her head on her animal's fluffy covering, stroking it gently. “This doesn't feel like fur,” she said.

“It isn't. They have something called foeliri. It's sort of halfway between hair and feathers.”

“I've never heard of such a thing,” said Heather. She knew that wasn't saying much. There was a lot she didn't know.

“That's because it's not a feature of any animal indigenous to Earth.”

“What?!” blurted Suzie.

“They're aliens.”

“Wow!” gushed Season. “I have an alien for a pet!”

“Not just a pet, Miss Conlan. Remember that.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Catherine giggled. “Now, if you'll all take your seats, we can get started.”

Heather's sisteren moved toward tables, three with furlitae in tow. Heather considered Shorlthi. The long tail stretching behind her slowly swished back and forth. At first, she thought the animal was well-trained, but there was something in its eyes, something that suggested there was thought behind them. She felt herself drawn to her. Before she'd realized it, she'd taken several steps toward the lothnella.

“Miss Hearons?” said Catherine.

“Oh,” said Heather, shaking her head slightly, “sorry. It's just...” She looked into Shorlthi's eyes. “You're...not just an animal...are you?”

Shorlthi nodded and made a noise.

Heather blinked. “Wh...what did you say?”

Shorlthi repeated the noise.

“You...you can...talk?”

'Of course we can talk, silly human,' said Shorlthi.

“Oh...my...God,” said Heather slowly.

“What?” said Shasta.

“She can talk,” Heather repeated.

“Is that what that was?”

“What? No, no, she just called me a silly human. Didn't you hear?”

“I just heard noises,” said Suzie.

Shorlthi leaned down and peered at Heather. 'You...understand me, don't you?' she asked.

“Uh...yeah.” She turned back to her sisteren. “Don't any of you?”

“Don't any of us what?” asked Jane.

Heather looked back at Shorlthi. “I'm going crazy, aren't I?” she moaned.

“Interesting,” said Catherine pensively.

“What's interesting?”

“You understand their language, yet you've never heard it before. While we'll have to confirm that, it can only mean one thing.”

Shorlthi backed up, turned around, strode to the edge of the patio, and let out a complex, bleating bellow.

“You're an All-Speaker,” said Catherine.

“What's that?”

“It's someone with the magical ability to understand other languages. It's not all that common among Ingarians. But in humans...it's very rare.”

“Wait,” said Suzie, “how can that...” She gestured toward Shorthi, who had taken position near the edge of the patio, looking back and forth between the women and something out of sight. “...have a language?”

Catherine smiled knowingly. “How do you think?”

The realization hit Heather like a brick. “They're...intelligent...like us.”

“Exactly.”

“Are they aliens, too?” asked Season.

“Yes. Yes, they are.”

“Cool!”

Catherine chortled lightly. “Oh, Miss Conlan, you really are a joy. I think you'll fit in quite well here.”

“Um...thanks.” A smile split the girl's face. It did Heather's heart good to see it.

“So, handsome,” said Dawn, who'd seated herself conspicuously near Frederick. She leaned forward in her seat, cocked her head and batted her eyelashes.

Frederick stepped crispy over to Dawn, his hands clasped behind his back. “Miss Forsythe, I presume?” he said amiably.

Dawn smiled invitingly. Heather resisted the urge to roll her eyes. That woman really didn't waste any time. “If you want,” said Dawn seductively.

Frederick smiled disarmingly. “Delighted to meet you,” he said. He lifted her hand gently and just as gently kissed her knuckles. “I see that my sister was rather understating things. While we insist that you all desist your erstwhile...”

“Wait, wait,” said Suzie, “could you use smaller words? We're just...were just...sh...crap, we just ain't booklearned yet, okay?”

“Point taken,” said Frederick evenly. He returned his attention to Dawn. “As I was saying, we insist you all leave your former practices behind, and none of you has a problem with that. Except for you, Miss Forsythe. So tell me, what does one do with someone like you?”

“I can think of something,” said Dawn.

“So can I, but I'm sure it's far more than you're thinking or that you're thinking I'm thinking.” Frederick returned his hand to its position behind his back and proceeded to slowly circle Dawn. “You see, on the one hand, we have you. And considering those present, I don't think I have to expound. On the other hand, we have me. The yin to the other's yang.”

“The what to what?” said Dawn.

“The point is, you're inclined to throw yourself at every man in Corona and we won't have that.”

“And just how do you know that?”

Frederick chuckled. “Besides it being rather obvious to those who know the signs, my relatives and I have...our ways. What's important at this juncture is that you know you're like that, I know you're like that, you know that I know and I know that you know that I know.

“With that, and a few other extenuating circumstances, in mind, my sister has made a suggestion.”

“What sort of suggestion?”

“You will be my only.”

“Your only what?”

Frederick merely inclined his head.

“Ah,” said Dawn, “you'd like me to be your personal plaything. I think I can deal with that.”

“Not exactly,” said Catherine flatly. “Mother thinks you should be his wife.”

“Wh...wh... _WHAT!?_ ” Dawn blurted, losing her composure.

“It's not settled, of course,” said Frederick, “nor will we force you. But do bear in mind that you would be mine and mine alone. And if you don't, we'll insist that you be no one's.”

“While we're not your nanny,” said Catherine, “we do expect everyone in our employ to behave themselves. And that includes not slutting around, as it were. It tends to cause problems of the avoidable sort that we'd prefer to, well, avoid.”

“I don't know...”

“At least consider it.” Frederick leaned a little closer to Dawn and smiled.

“Look at it this way,” said Catherine, “his late wives would have told you to go for it.”

“L..late wives?” said Dawn. “What did you do to them?”

“Interesting you should put it that way,” said Frederick. “Shall I show you?”

Dawn batted her eyelashes. “I'm not sure you can...” She cut off with a gasp. She slowly convulsed, then her eyes rolled up and she convulsed again.

Heather could barely believe what was happening. She knew the signs of an orgasm well enough. She also recognized a faked one, which was something she and her sisteren had elevated to an art form. Dawn didn't seem to be faking it. But how?

“Oh...” Dawn began before sucking in a ragged breath, then another, and another. “ _OH!_ ” Her whole body went rigid. She held it for a moment before abruptly sagging into her chair, breathing heavily, a goofy grin on her face.

“Not sure I can what, Miss Forsythe?” asked Frederick. “Satisfy you?”

“What...was...that?” Dawn asked breathlessly.

Frederick raised an eyebrow, then chuckled.

“Never mind,” said Dawn.

“I make it a point never to allow my women to be responsible for their own pleasure.”

“You...yes, of course you did. But how?”

Frederick grinned.

“Long story,” said Catherine. “Suffice it to say his formers seldom spared breath to express their...satisfaction with my uncle. In fact, they frequently commented on his...stamina. Sometimes embarrassingly so, I might add.”

Dawn blushed furiously. “I...I see. And what I've been doing...it doesn't bother you? Because it bothers most men.”

“It won't be a problem.”

“Why?”

“Because I'd decided not to allow it to be a problem. I have need of a wife. I need someone who can, as Mother is fond of putting it, satisfy my appetites. And you have need of someone who can satisfy yours.”

Dawn sat up and leaned closer to Frederick. “I'm interested...your Highness.”

“I'm glad to hear it. Because it won't do for someone in my position and my condition to allow just anyone to carry my children.”

Heather had to admit the man certainly was handsome...and charming. He bore himself with confidence. Yet, he managed to avoid coming off as arrogant. The two traits far too often went hand in hand. At least, they did with the sorts of men Heather and her sisteren were used to meeting. Frederick was apparently not that sort of man. In fact, he seemed genuinely interested in Dawn as a person.

“Ch...ch...children?!” blurted Dawn.

Heather could practically watch her friend's brain derail and grind to a screeching halt. It was absolutely priceless and would have been downright hilarious if Frederick weren't so dead serious about his proposal.

There'd been many men who'd pretended to take interest in one or the other of the girls as people. But after a while, Heather had learned to see through their ruses, or else they'd convinced themselves that they'd been in love, only to later drop off the face of the earth. But Frederick seemed like the genuine article.

“I...I'm not wife material. And I'm sure as hell not mother material!”

Frederick grinned and gazed into Dawn's eyes. “Why not? So, Dawn...may I call you Dawn?”

Dawn nodded slowly.

“Good.” Without warning, Frederick pulled Dawn off of her chair, spun her around, tipped her backward, and kissed her passionately. Heather wasn't completely sure, but there appeared to be tongue involved.

At first, Dawn froze, her limbs apparently unresponsive. After a few moments, she regained control and wrapped her arms around Frederick, running her fingers through his hair and kissing him in return.

Catherine rolled her eyes.

After a couple of minutes, Frederick tipped Dawn back to her feet, breaking the kiss. She stood there breathlessly.

“I say you are. You can be if you decide to be. Yes, Dawn, I think you'll do nicely.” Frederick rubbed his chin pensively. “You're direct. I like that. My mother and sisters have that quality, but it's just not the same as having it in a wife.”

“Is that...a proposal?”

“A pre-proposal, you could say.”

“But you don't know anything about me! Well, besides the obvious.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Suzie. “Why does _she_ get to marry a prince? What will the rest of us have to do while she sits on a cushion all day?”

Catherine chortled. “Rumors of the idle rich have been...no, on second thought, they haven't been exaggerated at all,” she said. “But here in Corona, those of us in charge do at least as much work as those who aren't. So I can assure you all, Miss Forsythe here will most definitely _not_ be sitting on a cushion all day, as you put it, regardless of whether or not she marries my uncle.”

“True,” said Frederick. “Which is why, following this afternoon's meeting, I'd like you to accompany me down to the river.”

“What's at the river?”

“It's not the destination that matters, so much as the journey.”

“Okay, so what's on the way to the river?”

“You are.”

“Hmmm. So you want to do me in the woods, then? I think I can get behind that...or in front of it or in whatever way you want.”

Frederick smiled. “That's not why I want to walk with you. I'm looking forward to getting to know you better.”

“Are you sure that's a good idea?” said Dawn.

“Yes.” Frederick winked. “And please be less crass. Any woman who marries me becomes a Princess. And Princesses have manners, like it or not. Their jobs require it.”

“Jobs?”

“Our management style is hands-on. And by that I mean we're intimately involved. And yes, Dawn, should we marry...and I think we should...I fully intend to intimately place my hands all over you, which I expect you'll enjoy.”

Dawn blinked. “Um...aren't people supposed to fall in love before they get married?”

“You'd think so, wouldn't you? Ideally, yes, that's usually how it works. However, in every romantic relationship, the euphoria eventually wears off. Even before then, love is at least as much of a choice as it is a feeling. One will not always feel love, but one can always choose love. That's true even when two people don't necessarily like each other. I therefore choose love from the start. And I choose to love you.

“You see, if I wanted only your body, I could have it, believe me. But as it happens, I've been seeking a wife for a very long time. I've married thrice. Once for politics, once of necessity, and once for love. It's all quite complicated, but I doubt you'll have any trouble coming to grasp the...intricacies of our family.”

“Well,” said Dawn pensively, “I typically prefer older men.”

“Older than what?”

“Older than you.”

“I'm older than I look.”

“So the years have been kind?”

“Others might say that.”

Dawn smiled. “Well...I...I suppose I accept, then. But you still owe me that walk.”

“Fair enough.”

“How do you know you won't kill each other?” asked Kendra.

Frederick chuckled. “I think you'll all find me very difficult to kill. Besides, I make it a point to deprive people of sufficient motivation.”

“What?”

“Why would someone try to kill me if they didn't have reason to do so? And I have absolutely no reason to want to kill Dawn. Besides...” His smile broadened. “...you're too cute to kill.” He winked at Dawn. She winked back.  


The two of them did seem to be hitting it off well enough. She didn't know how long that would last. On the other hand, it was all such unfamiliar territory, she had no real idea what to expect from any of it.

A few moments later, a blur at the edge of the patio became another lothnella, as though it had jumped from below. Which it probably had. It was smaller than Shorlthi and bore chocolate-brown fur shot with silver. It exchanged glances with Shorlthi, who jerked her head toward Heather, then stalked over, its feet thumping on the stones and echoing in the space below, as though the patio were a huge drum. The animal lowered its head to Heather's eye-level, and peered at her.

“Miss Hearons,” said Catherine, “this is Shorlthi's daughter Helrithi.”

“Um...hello?”

Helrithi snorted.

“Is that...a greeting?”

'More or less,' replied Helrithi.

“More or less?”

Helrithi turned her head to look at her mother.

'Miss Hearons is an All-Speaker,' said Shorlthi.

'I see,' said Helrithi, returning her attention to Heather.

Heather raised a hand, then paused. “May I...pet you?”

Helrithi cocked her head slightly. 'Yes,' she said finally.

Heather reached up and stroked Helrithi's snout. She was captivated. “Are you...dangerous?” she asked.

Helrithi made a chuffling sound. Heather paused. “Did you just laugh at me? Was that funny? Or should I be worried?” She still held eye contact with the lothnella.

'Of course we are dangerous, silly human,' said Helrithi, 'but no more so than you.'

“I see,” said Heather dubiously.

Helrithi sniffed at Heather. She sniffed her up one side and down the other, then stared deeply into her eyes. The two held each other's gaze and Heather felt drawn into the large, beautiful, silver-rimmed eyes. At length, Helrithi tipped her head and rubbed it against Heather in a curiously feline manner.

Heather had to brace herself to keep from being knocked onto her backside. Helrithi nudged her several times, then lolled a grey tongue and licked her from throat to forehead. Heather just stood there and blinked. She wasn't being...tasted...was she?

Catherine giggled. “You have been chosen...should you choose in return.”

Heather tipped her head, ignoring the dampness on her face. “Chosen for what?” she said, still looking at Helrithi.

“Helrithi would like you to be her kairina.”

Heather broke eye contact with Helrithi to look at Catherine. “Which would entail what, exactly?”

“It's...sister-in-arms is the closest English equivalent.”

“Well...yes, I understood that much. But what would it require of me? I'd...kind of like to know before I say yes or no to it.”

“Fair enough. Are you familiar with the Amerindian idea of blood-brothers?”

“A little.” It was actually rather alarming how informed women in her former line of work could be. Men tended to become somewhat loose-lipped between the sheets.

“It's a lot like that. So as you might expect, it's not something to be taken lightly...neither the choosing, nor the relationship. Whatever you decide, there will be consequences either way. Do be aware that it is no small matter for such an offer to be made on first sight. There's something about you that connects with her. It's impossible to say what.

“If you choose in return, the two of you will do everything together, short of sleeping and bathing. You may sleep on it, if you wish.”

Heather returned her attention to Helrithi. For several pregnant moments, the two held each other's gaze. Finally, Heather said, “I accept. You do realize, though, that I have no idea what I'm doing.”

Helrithi made a sort of cooing sound. She rose, walked over toward a table, then lay down. 'I'm more comfortable than a chair,' she said.

“Uh...okay.” Heather shrugged, walked over, and sat down on Helrithi's back. She was very soft. Heather instinctively began to pet Helrithi. Then she paused. “You...don't mind me doing this, do you?”

'If I did, you would know.'

Frederick stepped over to a large crate sitting on a table and began to pull stacks of bound papers out of it. He handed a few to Catherine, who proceeded to distribute them. He also handed several to Shorlthi, who also proceeded to distribute them.

“A large part of what we're doing right now,” said Catherine, “involves global defense. So you've entered an academy of sorts. This will be your home for at least a week. We know that not everyone will be suitable for this sort of thing. If you're one of those people, we'll arrange for you to resettle after that point. Otherwise, you'll enter the academy as Cadets.

“In either event, our purpose is to help you find your place. We want you to eventually be able to wake up each morning thinking, 'I love my job! My work is one of my greatest joys!' Through it, you'll find fulfillment and satisfaction. Our philosophy is that you were each born to do something and we've brought you here to help you find it.

“This will involve rigorous education in a variety of subjects, some barely envisioned even before the Shift. The Queen wants at least one all-female crew and she believes you could be one such crew. Or possibly two or three. You've already been living together. We'll need to see how well you can work together.”

Heather raised a hand and looked up from the papers she'd started trying to read. “Just...what is this an academy for, anyway?”

Catherine smiled. “We're training people to fly starships.”

“What?”

Catherine repeated herself.

“I think she means,” said Kendra, “what's a starship?”

“When we've finished terraforming Mars, we'll be able to show you. In short, war is upon us and we'll be flying vessels out into space to destroy stars.”

Heather blinked.

“Terra-what?” said Shasta.

“We'll get to that,” said Frederick, tapping on one of the reams of paper. “It's all in here and we'll go over it all. That's why orientation takes a week. It's...involved. Suffice it to say, we'll be doing something the people in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries drooled over. Trust me, you want to do this. You just don't know it yet.”

“Now, before we get started,” said Catherine, “I believe we'll all think better after lunch.”

“I thought we already had lunch,” said Suzie.

Catherine merely gestured to the other side of the patio.

Heather and her sisteren craned their heads around to look. She felt her eyes grow wide. Two tables sat at the far side, each with a couple of attendants standing by them. Each table was heaped with food. Perhaps 'heaped' was a bit of an exaggeration, but relative to the small plate in her room, and especially to what she and her sisteren were used to eating, it looked like a veritable smorgasbord.

“Oh...my...God,” said Suzie.

At first, no one moved. Then everyone suddenly leaped to their feet and descended on the tables like a pack of rabid wolves. The two attendants had to duck out of the way. Several minutes later, Heather sat back at her table with a large plate piled high with several cheeses, meats, fish, hard-boiled eggs, berries, summer fruits, vegetables, crackers, and bread.

“Aren't a few of you forgetting something?” asked Catherine once everyone had returned to their seats.

“Um...thank-you?” said Suzie.

Catherine nodded graciously. “You're welcome. But there's something else.”

Heather stiffened. Then she placed a hand on Helrithi. “Would you like something? I...have no idea what you eat.”

The lothnella nodded. 'Thank-you. I have already eaten. We...will discuss that later.'

Season gasped. “Oops!” She looked down at her furlit, whose nose twitched energetically, then back at Catherine. “What do furlits...”

“Furlitae,” Catherine corrected. “That's the feminine plural.”

“Oh...okay. So what do furlitae eat? I...I'm supposed to feed her, right?”

“Indeed you are. Strictly speaking, they're omnivores. But they do tend to have a preference for meat, especially when young.”

Season picked up a piece of baked chicken from her plate and held it out for her animal. The creature smoothly grabbed it with both fore-paws and began to munch. Lynn and Kennerly did the same for their own animals.

“Right,” said Catherine. “We'll begin.”

* * *

Several hours and an evening meal later, Heather lay on a comfortable twin bed between light linen sheets. Her bed...her sheets...no one else's. For the first time in, well, ever, she was squeaky clean. It felt wonderful. Her belly was comfortably full, perhaps even a bit overfull, which was something else she couldn't remember ever happening to her. She'd just finished a decent cup of chamomile tea not minutes before.

She wasn't sure she'd needed its calming effects. Neither she, nor any of her sisteren, had slept very well at all the night before. That wasn't saying much, of course. A decent night's sleep was a concept alien to her, but one she was reasonably sure she'd come to know in rather short order. She smiled at the thought.

Yet the Fitzherberts had insisted she'd need the tea. Perhaps they'd been right. She still had questions, and the afternoon's presentation raised far more than had been answered, questions which chased each other round and round in her mind, threatening to keep her awake.

First and foremost had been compressed histories of Old Corona in Europe, the former Oregon Territory, the Portland Protective Association, the kingdom of New Corona that had replaced it, Corona's neighbors and their neighbors, and Ingary in its locations to the south, in southeastern Alaska before that, and as another planet before that.

She'd been surprised to learn that all the stories she'd heard were more or less true, at least in substance. Though certain details had turned out to be, unsurprisingly, inaccurate. Ingarians were aliens from another world, magic was real, Corona's rulers bore the fires of suns, and Queen Rapunzel herself was indeed the sun. Heather still didn't know how that all worked, though she and her sisteren had been assured that it was all quite complicated.

Mermaids and mermen were real and one of the Bear Lord's daughters, one Mary Swift nee Havel, had been turned into one. Further, such people of the sea were to be in very high demand for anything involving zero gravity. Several of Heather's sisteren had expressed interest in that. Duchess Catherine had responded promising a meeting with Princess Swift to discuss the matter.

The planet Mars was undergoing terraforming. Frederick explained that the whole of Mars was a barren, rocky, dusty, dead wasteland. But it was also needed as a shipyard. Therefore, Corona had begun to use their Bifrost technology to transform it into a livable world capable of supporting enough water, oxygen, and life to be usable as a base of operations. He'd gone on to explain why that was necessary and why they needed something called electricity which no longer functioned on Earth. He'd also promised a more in-depth exploration of the science behind it.

Frederick had also explained that more than one trillion stars had declared war—all because his little sister had been born--and that Corona was spearheading a global mobilization to meet the threat. Such was the point of the Academy—which some pre-Changers had apparently been calling “Starfleet Academy” for reasons that both Prince Frederick and Duchess Catherine found humorous. Heather didn't understand the reference, but she'd been assured that she eventually would.

That had only been the beginning. The next morning, she and all her sisteren were to have their medical examinations and magic screening. It was all quite exciting!

She closed her eyes in the darkness and smiled. Season was already asleep in her own bed across the small room, her furlit curled up and purring at the girl's feet. Laura's breathing had taken a little longer to even out. She'd been one of those who'd expressed interest in becoming a mermaid. Jane had fallen asleep about as soon as her head had hit her pillow.

Heather felt happy and at peace. For the first time in many years, her bed was only for sleeping. She knew from what little she'd seen that her life was about to get very weird. Somehow, she didn't have a problem with that. At long last, she felt the tea taking effect, and sleep took her.


	4. Chapter 4

Flagstaff, Arizona  
July 18, CY 27, 2039 AD

A loud chirping shattered the darkness of Donald Smithers' bedroom, ripping him out of sound sleep. He groped in the darkness, homing in on the source of the sound. Finding it, he picked it up and tapped on its edge. The sound ceased.

“Smithers,” he croaked. 

Only a small handful of people had his “number,” a term he used very loosely and only because most pre-Changers, himself included, still thought of the communication mirrors as magical cell phones. All of those people were under strict orders never to call him after sundown unless it was a dire emergency.

“Um...sir,” said his assistant, John Bowen, “I think you'd better get over here.” The other man's face was barely visible in the glass, illuminated by a faint red glow.

“What is it?”

“It's...well, you need to see it.”

“Fine,” Donald growled. “Be there in a minute.”

He tapped the frame again and the faint red glow vanished. He exhaled heavily. He gave his still-sleeping wife a glance in the darkness. If Bowen had called a couple of hours earlier, he'd have damned near resorted to violence.

He quietly got out of bed. The otherwise cold, concrete floor was buffered by a patchwork of area rugs that had been hastily laid several months before. He grabbed his clothes, and left the bedroom. In the darkness, he got dressed, pulled on his boots, and left the building.

He stepped outside, the chill air pricking at his skin. He was sometimes still surprised at how cold it could be in midsummer in the open ponderosa pine forest at just over 7200 feet elevation. He resisted the urge to go back inside to his warm bed and hot wife.

The building behind him had once been the Control Building for the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer. It had, of course, died along with all other technology the night of the Change. Over the past year, it had been gutted of all the useless instruments, computers, and so on and converted into a residence for the staff assigned to the Mars Project. That still made him chuckle.

Just before the Change, people had been talking about sending manned missions to Mars. They'd have done it, too. There'd been several unresolved problems, but there'd never been any doubt in the minds of himself and other astronomers, astrophysicists, and astronauts that those would be solved within the decade. Then the Change had killed it all. The irony that a successful terraforming of that planet could be conducted in under a decade and in a Changed world was not lost on Smithers.

The proposal had been fairly straightforward: observe Mars at maximum magnification and record everything. The details, on the other hand, had been otherwise. They called for tracking, telemetry, photography, spectrometry, and so on. None of those things would have been a problem before the Change. But since then? All of that had been impossible.

He'd even said so and in not so few words. All the optics on all the telescopes worked. But the motors driving their focusing apparatus, and the larger ones responsible for positioning each instrument and manipulating the large steel doors in the observatory domes, on the other hand, were well and truly dead.

He'd said so right to the face of the woman who'd come to him that summer dawn. He'd ridden out from Flagstaff Citadel along the old Kachina Trail, Lake Mary Rd. being both hard on horses' hooves and generally too prone to banditry. He'd been nursing another hangover on the shore of Prime Lake, the limestone sinkhole barely long bow-shot from the NPOI complex. Suddenly, she'd appeared over the water like the proverbial Lady of the Lake. And, like the Lady, she'd proceeded to issue him his quest. When he'd almost immediately told her no, she'd promptly vanished.

A week later, she'd reappeared. Incidentally, he'd been at the same place and nursing yet another hangover. She'd proceeded to repeat his instructions in very certain terms. Minutes later, several “specialists” had arrived via something she'd called a “Bifrost.” She'd immediately introduced him to bioluminescence specialist Penelope Foishr, optics specialist Duchess Catherine Fitzherbert, positronics specialist Countess Eva Fitzherbert, and magic specialist Master Howell Pendragon.

Donald hadn't been sure about those titles, and had been even less sure about magic. He'd also been skeptical of their claims that between them they held more graduate degrees than all the University of Arizona Change survivors put together. But to say that the strangers had immediately impressed him with their range of knowledge and ability had been an understatement. In fact, they'd quickly gone over his head and he'd once been on the fast track to tenure in the UA Astrophysics Department before the Change.

That was another thing. The Coronans, as they referred to themselves, insisted on calling it “the Shift.” They claimed Earth had been shoved out of phase by an energy surge. Even more fantastical, Penelope was an alien—a living, breathing alien!

In short, he'd been given an offer he hadn't dared refuse. It gave him something to do, something that related to his former career, and he'd sorely needed that. Somehow, building, maintaining, and managing small, tripod-mounted telescopes on regional lookout towers just hadn't been satisfying for him. It also gave him an opportunity to work with a real alien.

His first thought had been the Discovery Channel Telescope out near Happy Jack. It had been designed for deep space research and had been an unqualified success its first few weeks of life in early 2012. But even a cursory examination had yielded a number of problems, all revolving around electricity. For that reason alone, the NPOI, which had been controlled by sophisticated computers and electronics, was also out of the question. It would have been severe overkill anyway, unless they'd wanted him to watch the dunes shift on Mars.

The DCT also had complicated electronics and trying to retrofit those to run on positrons, which he barely understood, was just too problematic and he didn't begin to understand enough of what the Coronans had been saying about magic. So he'd shifted his attention to the seventy-two-inch Perkins telescope.

A month's worth of comings and goings had made his brain hurt and in a way it hadn't since the Change. The Coronans could easily have ridden roughshod over him. They had more than enough knowledge to waltz right in, look at things, and then do it all around him. Yet they made a point of involving him in every step of the process. They'd immediately put him in charge and had assumed the roles of consultants. He hadn't understood half of what they'd been saying, so he'd done a lot of smiling, nodding, and rubber-stamping.

They'd taken care of the overhead political and administrative nonsense with Flagstaff. They'd asked him dozens of questions about what he thought about personnel logistics. When they'd brought in people to oversee the conversion of the NPOI Control Building into a domicile, they'd allowed him to hire local workers and use local materials. They'd done the same thing during the retrofitting of the telescope and its building.

In the end, they'd only interfered with foreign personnel and materials when a particular situation specifically called for something outside his and his people's ability. That meant the bioluminescent lighting they'd installed throughout the compound, the magical lighting fixtures in and on the buildings, the positronic motors that replaced the old electrical ones to manipulate the telescope, and the positrical generator and power transmission hardware for them.

The dome housing the Perkins reflector telescope, one of several comprising the Lowell Observatory, was barely visible against the night sky as a masking of the stars above the pines due west of his domicile. Its shape told him the heavy steel doors stood open, the instrument within trained on Mars.

He trotted the barely hundred yards toward the building, dirt and gravel crunching under his feet, the exercise quickly warming him. A pair of bioluminescent lamps blazed on either side of the main doors, their greenish glow reminding him of nothing so much as the old glow-in-the-dark toys he used to have way back in college, only much brighter.

Ducking through the double doors, Donald came into the cavernous interior of the observatory. Bioluminescent lighting fixtures along the walls glowed a dull red, just enough to see. It was just as cold inside as it was outside. The steam of his breath diffused the ruddy light.

“I was enjoying my dream,” said Donald, his voice echoing off the bare walls, “so this had better be good.”

His assistant John Bowen replied out of the dimness. “Well, Doctor, sir, I guess that depends on your definition of good.”

“Oh, out with it,” said Donald impatiently as he strode over to the main instrument area.

John exhaled. “At first, I thought Mars had exploded.”

Donald felt a spike of panic. “Exploded?!”

“Yes, sir. Well, I really don't understand just what it is they're doing with that Bifrost thing of theirs. Calling it 'terraforming' is rather vague.”

“They told us what they were doing.”

“Yes...they did...but you've noticed it doesn't follow any of the theoretical procedures outlined in any of the literature. And most of it goes over our collective heads. Quite frankly, I've never really understood why we're even involved.”

“Something about it being a global threat requiring global response,” said Donald. “Anyway...”

“Well, I had the scope trained on Mars...as usual. And...” He gestured to the business end of the telescope.

Donald stepped over and looked through it. “What the hell is that?!” Instead of the round, ruddy sphere of Mars, a strange, tear-shaped ball of shimmering light hung in the night sky where the planet should have been.

“No idea, sir. Like I said, at first I thought it had exploded. But it didn't look right. So I ran it through a monochromatic exposure plate. And as I suspected, it's far too bright to be an explosion. In fact, it looks a lot like solar plasma. But without one of those pre-Change spectrum chromatographers, it's really beyond my...what's that expression you use, sir?”

“Beyond my ken and my Barbie and all my other action figures?”

“Yeah, that one. Anyway, the other strange thing is that tail. It looks like the energy in it is flowing. But the angle suggests it's not coming from Earth. I also watched it arrive. And it was fast. It entered the field of view and closed around the planet in a matter of minutes. It didn't behave at all like the Bifrost stream, either. But without further observations, I won't be able to tell you more.”

“The Coronans are going to want to see this.”

“I took the liberty of printing a photographic plate, sir.” At Donald's glance, he continued. “We're supposed to document all anomalies, aren't we?”

Donald sighed. “They're going to shit a brick, you know that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Donald gazed back into the telescope. It really was beautiful, even if terrifying. He watched it for several minutes. “Doesn't look like it's changing much. Not like we can do anything about it anyway.” He tore his gaze away from the instrument. “I'm going back to bed. I'll check in with you in the morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

Donald turned and strode back outside. They were probably going to have his balls on a platter. But it wasn't his fault. He was just told to keep an eye on things.

* * *

The next day, Donald Smithers strode back into the observatory. John had been pulling a swing shift of sorts. “Well?” said Donald.

“I've determined the source of the energy stream, sir.”

“It's a stream?”

“Yes, sir. And it's coming from the sun.”

“It's a CME?”

“It's inconsistent with that, sir. For one thing, it's very tight. And it's sustained. The only thing it really has in common with a coronal mass ejection is that it's originating from a cluster of sunspots. I've taken a few more photo plates. I'd like to take them down to Flagstaff for developing.”

“Very well,” said Donald indulgently. “But be careful with those things. Photo paper's irreplaceable. When we run out of that, we'll have to switch to that sepia-tone stuff they're making in Ingary. That, or just chuck the whole thing and go straight back to monochrome. At least we can make that the old-tech way.”

* * *

Corvallis  
July 25, CY 27, 2039 AD

“Fifty-eight...fifty-nine...sixty.” Eugene Fitzherbert bounced up from the push-up position. He grabbed his water flask on his way to his feet and poured some down his throat as he resumed his jog. It wasn't like he needed to stay young. The sun-tears embedded in his quantum mattergetic matrix did that for him. For centuries, he'd done exercises to keep his edge, improve his muscle tone, and clear his mind.

He sprinted across the grass, then dropped to his back and began cross-body crunches. A sudden thump on the ground next to him drew his attention. He turned his head to see his wife Rapunzel lying on her back, a forearm across her eyes. Eugene stopped. She didn't usually drop in like that. “Um...honey? Is...something wrong?”

“And on the seventh day, Rapunzel rested,” she moaned.

“Rested from what?”

A chirp sounded from inside the pouch Eugene wore at his waist. “You'd better get that,” said Rapunzel, her arm still across her eyes.

Eugene sighed, then brought a stiffened leather case out of the pouch. He unfolded it, pulled out a mirror, and tapped on its frame. Someone else's face appeared in it. “Yes?” said Eugene.

“Your Majesty,” said the woman in the glass, “the astronomers from Flagstaff are here.”

“Yes...right...thank-you. I'll be right up.” Eugene tapped on the frame and the image vanished. He replaced the mirror. He'd nearly forgotten about the terraforming meeting. He'd even called for it himself. He glanced at Rapunzel.

“I'll meet you there,” she said without looking.

Eugene leaned over and placed a kiss on her forehead. “I love you,” he said.

Rapunzel smiled beneath her arm. “I love you more.”

“Are you sure you're not overdoing it, honey?”

“Pretty sure, dearest. Now we don't want to keep people waiting, do we?”

Eugene smiled. “I love you most.” He rose to his feet, then charged off toward the Coronan Embassy to freshen up. It wouldn't do to show up to a high-level international meeting looking like an unwashed hyena and smelling like a herdsman fresh off the range.

* * *

Half an hour later, every foreign representative and half as many interpreters crowded onto the roof of the Coronan Embassy. Eugene had seen more than his share of International encounters and it still impressed him how cumbersome multinational meetings could be. They'd streamlined the process as much as possible, even to the point of offending certain people.

He and his had refined the art of telling others to go to hell in such a way that they looked forward to the trip. But there were limits to that and sometimes, one just had to flat-out tell someone to pry the gherkin out of their arse and deal with it. There'd been dozens of times over the many years since Rapunzel's father had first made him Corona Chief of Security when violence had ensued. Many of those early incidents could have been avoided. But in the intervening years, Eugene had come to realize that regardless of what the pacifists said about violence not being the answer, some people were just looking for a fight and wouldn't stop until they had it. In those cases, Eugene didn't disappoint them and when he did, he made sure they lost dramatically, publicly, and embarrassingly.

A large, sturdy, round table supported more rocks than the papers they held down against a stiff onshore breeze. The large wind screen secured to the western side of the rooftop could only do so much.

Eugene left a space to his right. Suddenly, Rapunzel appeared in that space. Eugene nearly started. He really wished she'd fade in, rather than suddenly being there. He'd said as much several times before, and she always said she understood, which Eugene never doubted for a moment, but she continued to do it her way.

Murmurs drifted around the table. “How does she do that?” demanded the Russian Czar.

“I'm the sun, remember?” said Rapunzel.

“Ascended Master, you mean,” said the delegate from the Church Universal and Triumphant.

Those people had been getting on a lot of folks' nerves lately.

“Mistress,” said Rapunzel flatly. “And not in the way you mean. But I digress,” she added gracefully.

“Right,” said Eugene, “do we all know why we're here?”

“To answer the threat of Mordor?” said Dudedain Hiril Astrid Loring.

Several others around the table groaned, while a few others rolled their eyes slightly and still others gave off tells of reaction suppression. He was glad he'd developed the ability to read people. It had saved his life on many occasions. Since becoming involved with the Corona Royal Family so many decades before, the stakes had included much more than his own skin.

Eugene resisted the urge to join them, though he privately wished to do so. He could always count on certain people to lighten the mood. Instead, Eugene smiled. “More or less, Hiril Astrid.” He nodded to the man on his left. “Doctor Smithers has some recent observations of the Mars Project.”

“I thought you'd shut it down,” said Covallan General Peter Jones.

“Not exactly,” said Eugene. “Doctor?”

“Thank-you, Mister Fitzherbert,” said Dr. Smithers. Eugene noticed he hadn't addressed him as Majesty. He let it slide. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem. You're all aware of the background, so I'll get to the point. A week ago, we printed this photographic plate through the seventy-two-inch Perkins telescope.”

While the interpreters quietly translated for the representatives of far-flung places like Mongolia, Hokkaido, Indonesia, Greece, Upper Egypt, and Kurdistan, Smithers pulled a large color photograph out of a manila envelope and set it on the table. Eugene and the others peered at it as it went from hand to hand circulating around the table. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Rapunzel seemed to only show a passing interest. The photograph showed an odd, tear-shaped blob of light. He figured his wife had already seen what the photograph showed.

“What is that?” asked General Jones.

“We don't know,” said Smithers.

“At first,” said Smithers' assistant John Bowen, “I thought Mars had exploded. But when I compared the light spectrum, I found that it was far too bright for that. There was also no evidence of a debris field. It was, however, completely consistent with solar plasma.”

“Rapunzel plasma,” corrected Rapunzel.

“Right...sorry.”

“You said, 'was,'” said Jones.

“We're...getting to that.”

Smithers pulled another photograph out of the envelope. Eugene immediately recognized it as an image of the sun as viewed through a polarized filter lens. “You'll notice the plasma mass has a sort of...tail,” said Bowen. “The day after we took the first photo, I traced that tail. It was coming from the sun, emanating from this cluster of sunspots.” He pointed to them, then passed the photo.

Eugene peered at it before sending it on its way. Smithers waited until the photo had made its rounds before continuing.

Bowen produced a third photograph. “Later the first night, I made this print,” he said. It showed the incandescent blob, but with what appeared to be tendrils wrapped around several round objects. “I observed this over several hours. Over that time, the round objects were pulled into what I believe to be a plasma field. We think the objects were moons or asteroids, but even at maximum resolution, we can't be sure. After that, not much changed, except for an occasional, brief brightening of the field.”

“Then,” said Smithers, “we took this photograph yesterday. I want you all to note that we had to track it.”

“Track it?” said Jones.

“Our measurements suggest,” said Bowen, “that over the last week, the object migrated roughly point-five AU. That's more than forty million miles toward the sun.”

“Forty-nine point seven,” muttered Rapunzel.

“You...know something about this...your Majesty?” said Smithers. He plopped the photograph down onto the table.

It showed a blue-green planet with several generous wisps of cloud. Eugene recognized a few of Mars' salient features: the Valles Marineris; the Tharsis Montes; Argyre Planitia. But none of them were where they should have been relative to one another. The planet had a shimmering ring around it, not unlike Saturn's, and a small, lone moon was visible at the ring's outer edge. The whole thing somehow seemed bigger than it should have been. Eugene stared at it before passing it on.

“What...is that?” said Jones.

“As near as we can tell,” said Smithers, “it's Mars.”

“It's beautiful!” gushed Hiril Astrid.

“Thank-you,” said Rapunzel.

Eugene turned to Rapunzel as the photograph slowly made its rounds. “Please tell me you can explain this.”

“Well,” said Rapunzel sheepishly, “I may have...rearranged things...” She held up a thumb and forefinger. “...just a little.”

Eugene raised an eyebrow, then pointed at the photo. “Honey, I know we don't always share the same perspective, but that looks like more than a little to me.”

“Terraforming was taking too long. So I...took matters into my own flares.”

“Which means...?”

“I...got a little creative.”

Eugene sighed. “Rapunzel,” he said patiently, “what did you do?”

Rapunzel sighed. “I took it apart and put it back together again, okay?”

Eugene blinked.

“Um,” said Smithers, “you do know we're talking about Mars, don't you?”

Rapunzel peered at Smithers. “Seriously?”

“You can't take a planet apart.”

“Yes...I...can.”

“What's the...green stuff?” asked British King William V.

“Vegetation.”

“Where'd you get it?”

“I put it there.”

“Ah-huh. And the blue?”

“Water.”

“Ri-ight,” said William dubiously.

“Rapunzel?” said Eugene. “What, exactly, happened up there?”

“Well,” said Rapunzel, fidgeting with her hair, “it went a lot like this...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the curious, go to www.lowell.edu for more information on the Lowell Observatory.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter, I recommend familiarizing yourself with Martian geography, or having a decent map of Mars handy.

North Pole, Mars  
July 18, CY 27, 2039 AD

Queen Elsa Rapunzel Firewalker Syele Agnes Clare Fitzherbert Corona, Co-Sovereign of Corona, Chancelloress of the Pacific Northwest Confederation of Nations, Holder of Earth, Sun of the Nine Realms, and Goddess of the Orion Spur, stood on the north pole of Mars. Or, more precisely, her corporeal projection stood upon it. She felt through the soles of her simulated feet the sheer chill of water ice that would have freezer-burned real flesh in moments. The frigid air that, at a hundred seventy degrees kelvin, would have quickly freeze-dried an ordinary corporeal pricked at her skin. She reveled in it, as she reveled in all things.

The glare from the ice washed out everything else, leaving only a stark whiteness stretching further than the eye could see. She perceived past it from her vantage point, off the edge of what was left of the ice shelf, ice that had shrunk from both the Martian summer and years of terraforming efforts. But she also saw it all from afar as her light reflected off the planet back to her stellar self.

When she'd first learned to manifest a projection of herself as she'd once been, she'd immediately found that it let her see things from multiple directions simultaneously. It had initially been quite disorienting, but she'd soon grown accustomed to it.

The residual energy from the Bifrost stream Corona had been using to terraform Mars had dissipated. That was all to the good. Rapunzel felt a little guilty about ordering cessation of that part of the operation, since she'd pushed for it initially, but she'd recently come to have other ideas. She smiled and raised herself off the ice, focusing her will, and collecting her energy. It was time to put her divinity to the test.

In the beginning, Rapunzel re-created heaven and Mars.

Rapunzel let her arms drift slightly away from her body, letting her physical form reflect her mental state.

Mars was void and empty. Darkness was upon the surface of the deep and the manifestation of Rapunzel hovered over the waters.

Rapunzel probed the planet, letting her perception touch every rock, every crystal, the reservoirs of liquid water entombed deep beneath the surface, down to the very core of the world itself until she lay in contact with Mars in its entirety and its essence lay open before her. The ice cap still stretched out just beneath her, water stilled in its place. Its atmosphere held a good ten percent more oxygen and water vapor than it had a few years before. Otherwise, Mars was still just as utterly barren as it had always been.

Then Rapunzel said, “Let there be Light!” She felt a sudden release of pressure as the nearly six times ten to the thirtieth joules of energy she'd prepared erupted from a concentrated collection of sunspots on her chromosphere. She pushed the resulting flare toward Mars, keeping the energy stream tight. It leaped across the void, propelled by Rapunzel's stellar wind, guided by the streams of her corona. Two hours later, that energy reached Mars.

Rapunzel wrapped her stellar energy around the planet like a great, shimmering blanket, its inner surface just outside the orbit of Deimos. The Martian sky lit up in a vast swath of undulating gold. Waves of red, orange, yellow, and white ebbed and flowed, bathing the entire planet in its glow.

Then Rapunzel said, “Let the waters below be separated from the waters above!”

Rapunzel began to sing. A single strong, clear note filled the air. It rolled across the surface of Mars. It reverberated from every wall, every precipice, every dune, every rock, every crevice, and every speck of dust. Another note, one octave lower, joined the first, then another an octave higher, and on until that single, laminated tone rolled to and fro across the Martian landscape. Rapunzel sustained that note, holding it until every crystal on Mars from the uppermost crag of Olympus Mons to the center of the planetary core resonated with it.

Another noise filled the air, rising to blend with Rapunzel's song. It began as a low rumble as rock vibrated against rock, then rose in both pitch and volume. Steam and carbon dioxide erupted from the ice caps as they broke apart with a million loud _CRACKS_. Particles of rock and water separated from one another. Everything on and in Mars came apart at the seams until the entire planet hung in space as a dense cloud of sub-microscopic particles.

Rapunzel's song changed slightly and tendrils of energy lanced out from the plasma shell surrounding Mars. Like the tentacles of a gargantuan kraken, they wrapped around the many celestial bodies Rapunzel had ripped away from the asteroid belt and her four gas giants. One by one, Rapunzel pulled Europa and Io, Ganymede and Callisto, Tethys, Rhea, and Mimas, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon, and Triton into the energy field surrounding the planet.

Each former moon shattered as it passed through the plasma horizon. The pieces shattered again and again, ground down into progressively smaller particles as though being fed through an enormous rock crusher. Passing into the plasma shell's interior, they merged with the neo-nascent Martian dust cloud.

Particles flowed around one another, coalescing together, re-forming and bolstering Mars' nickel-iron core. Rapunzel set it spinning rapidly. Then her song changed and crystals of feldspar, hornblende, and ferro-silicate migrated from the cloud toward the center, coalescing into alternating shells, each two miles thick. Layer after layer after layer accreted onto the one below it until the whole thing was nearly three-quarters the diameter of Earth. Finally, Rapunzel encased it all in a ten-mile thick layer of basalt, fused it, then wrapped a layer of water a half-mile thick around the entire planet before covering that in a fifty-mile thick shell of granite, a half-mile thick layer of olivine and then a mile-thick envelope of water.

And Mars rotated, marking a day.

Then Rapunzel said, “Let the surface waters be gathered together in one place and let dry ground appear!”

Rapunzel sang again, her song floating through the remaining dust and gas cloud bathing Mars. The water flowed as the uppermost ten miles of crust vibrated apart, the rock crystals migrating around one another and condensing again to form hills, highlands, ridges, and mountains, Rapunzel's song fusing the particles back together, permanently cementing them in place.

Most of the once-familiar Martian landmarks re-appeared--though not in their original positions--each one re-constructed in nearly every detail down to the last rock and sand dune, all of white and pink granite, streaked and layered with dark olivine. They joined scores of other new topographical features never before seen on Mars.

As the continents and subcontinents took form, water drained off of the land, leaving lakes, streams, and slow-moving rivers of various sizes strewn across the landscape which rose out of a slightly brackish ocean covering a third of the planet's surface.

Ceranius, Alba, and Tantalus Fossae, and Lycus Sulci, lay as shallow reefs. Acheron Fossae, the Ascuris-Maleotis-Tempe region, the Phlegra and Tartarus Montes, and Orcus Patera made island chains surrounded by reefs of their own.

Olympus Mons straddled the equator, scraping the sky at forty thousand feet elevation, its northern and southern shores spanning ten degrees of latitude. The scarp comprising most of its perimeter rose a mile from the sea floor to loom gleaming white streaked with pink and black a half-mile above sea level, rivers and streams pouring from its heights and blowing away in misty curtains. The lake held in its summit crater quickly began to freeze. To the west and north, the reefs of Lycus Sulci stretched out, bounded on the north by the Acheron Fossae temperate island chain.

A quarter of a world to the east, the Alba Patera subcontinent straddled the forty-fifth north parallel, occupying twenty degrees of latitude and twenty-five of longitude, the Ceraunius Fossae extending even further southward nearly to the tropics. The islands of the Tanaika Montes and Maleotis and Tempe Fossae stretched northeast into the subarctic.

A quarter of a world to the west of Olympus, the Elysium Montes rose from a temperate sea, spanning twenty degrees of latitude and twenty of longitude and topping out at twenty-five thousand feet elevation. Hecates Tholus sat on the southern tropic, shallow seas separating it from the rest of Elysium. Islands and bounding reefs of the Phlaegra Montes stretched northward from the Hecates coast past the equator.

The Tharsis Highlands balanced Olympus on the opposite side of the globe. Arsia Mons stood on the twentieth parallel north at thirty thousand feet, the other progressively lower Tharsis Montes stretching northeastward over thirty degrees of latitude. Uranius and Ceraunius Tholii and Uranius Patera formed a large island group at high latitude while the eastern flanks of Tharsis Tholus formed part of the continental shore east of Ascraeus Mons.

From the twenty-thousand-foot saddle between the bases of Arsia and Pavonis Mons, the slopes of the Tharsis Highlands descended gradually to the mountains rimming Argyre Sea. Ridges of the Solis and Melas Dorsae directed river courses that finally joined before flowing into Protva Valles just southwest of Nectaris Fossae.

To the west of the Tharsis Montes, the mountains of the Claritas Rupes sloped steeply to the ocean, casting a rain shadow over adjacent areas of Solius Planum. Appoloneris Patera sat just offshore due west of Arsia Mons, the long, low islands of Gordii Dorsum nearly connecting the two, and the broader islands of Eumenides Dorsum laying parallel to the north and the Amazonis Sulci islands north of that. Ulysses and Biblis Paterae loomed near shore, standing sentinel over the rivers flowing between them from the western end of Noctis Labyrinthus.

More land stretched out south of Thaumassia Planum all the way to the antarctic from which seasonal ice melt fed rivers flowing in numerous directions. In the midst of it, Hellas Sea spanned the forty-fifth parallel south, rimmed by low mountains and hills and catching several rivers originating in the antarctic.

The western end of Noctis Labyrinthus wrapped around Arsia Mons, that volcano occupying the area where Syria Planum might have been. Some of the glaciers and streams on Arsia and Pavonis drained into Noctis, flowing over precipices, the water settling into streams and lakes on the Labyrinthus floor, some draining west, but most draining east.

Noctis opened into the Valles Marineris, which trended southeastward across the equator. Its rim averaged sixteen thousand feet, collecting glaciers in some places. Most of the water originating on the rim either blew away in thin seasonal waterfalls, or tumbled toward the valley floor several thousand feet below as large pieces of ice and masses of too-heavy snow broke off from cornices. The water of its many lakes and sinuous rivers flowed out through the Aurorae and Hydraotes Chaos and the braided channels of the Margaritifer Terra before draining into the equatorial, mountain-rimmed, island-dotted Argyre Sea from the west, itself draining northeast to the ocean through cataracts linking Hale, Bond, and Holden craters.

To the north and south of Olympus, in the temperate zones, other smaller continents stretched to the arctic and antarctic respectively, each spanned by ranges of hills and mountains, all oriented to exert specific climatological and hydrological influences. Some of the rivers flowing from the arctic through arid interiors dried up before reaching the ocean, or else sank into the black sands.

Throughout the Martian lowlands, sand dunes stretched across each surface. Black basaltic dunes lay at the bottom of the northern ocean and adjacent land. Salt-and-pepper granitic dunes dominated the south. In between, they mixed, with pink and red banding in some places.

And Mars rotated again, marking a second day.

Rapunzel dragged Mars through space. Then she said, “Let there be a firmament surrounding Mars and let it be such as to support life!”

Rapunzel sang again. More dust particles condensed, falling onto the entire planet like brown snow. Larger particles settled onto the floors of the ocean, lakes, and streams. The finer, silt-like material covered every surface to a depth of at least twelve feet. It settled in basins. It sifted into crevices. It sank to the bottoms of lakes and streams, forming marshes in some places.

The song changed and gases settled out of the cloud surrounding the planet. Nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and argon mixed together and clung to Mars, weighing down the water and keeping it from sublimating. The gases continued to accumulate until they had formed a thick atmosphere that glowed brightly in the glare of Rapunzel's stellar energy field.

Then Rapunzel shattered Deimos into tens of thousands of pieces, some as large as a house, some little larger than a plum, and every size in between. She hurled the pieces down onto Mars. The impacts threw dust, rocks, and water up into the atmosphere and out onto the surrounding landscape.

Each piece formed a new crater, its center a fused glassy lump, bits of granite, olivine, and loess mixed up and ejected out onto the landscape, white, pink, and green-black blending with the dark brown soil. Along coastlines, water surged up, ripping soil away from some areas and depositing more in others. Impact waves carried debris up rivers, altering the hydrology and stream channels.

Rapunzel looked and was satisfied with her work.

And Mars rotated again, marking a third day.

Then Rapunzel said, “Let all the ground and a portion of that underwater support vegetation!”

Rapunzel sang again, the tones and tunes orders of magnitude more complex than before. The notes and chords wove over, under, around, through, and between one another in a complicated symphony that rang through Mars' atmosphere. Everywhere, green plants sprang up, their tissues condensing from more particles that continued to precipitate out of low orbit. Once all was in place, a powerful jolt of energy swept around the planet and all the new Martian vegetation began to grow.

Rapunzel drew upon her extensive lifetime of experience and travel upon two worlds. She patterned much of the Martian flora after Earth flora, some after what little she'd seen on the long-dead world of Ingary, and some from her own considerable imagination.

In the shallow edges of the ocean, stalks of non-algal kelp waved gently, with other kinds of both algal and non-algal kelp clinging to the rocks. In lakes and streams, smaller aquatic plants began to pump oxygen into the water.

The few sandy beaches of Olympus Mons supported dozens of types of palms, which gave way to tropical trees, tree-ferns, and cycads slightly inland, then subtropical trees and tree-ferns further upslope, which in turn gave way to temperate broad-leaved woodland and tree-ferns, then boreal and montane evergreen forest, several kinds of aspen, and more tree-ferns, which faded into the mountain's true alpine zone where tundra shrubs and herbaceous plants reached high into the uppermost slopes as far as conditions would allow.

Epiphytes hung from tree branches in the tropical, subtropical and temperate zones. Vines clung and clambered. Coastal cliffs, bluffs, upland outcrops, and alpine slopes, and bare tree branches were peppered with multicolored and multitextured lichens and mosses clung to trees and rocks from the tropical to the subalpine. A book on the flora of Olympus Mons alone would have occupied at least five volumes.

The islands sprouted palms and mangroves in the tropical and subtropical latitudes, shore pines, hemlocks, salal, and rhododendron in the mid and upper latitudes, and, of course, tree ferns.

The sheer walls and crevices of Noctis Fossae and the narrower reaches of Noctis Labyrinthus dripped with ferns, mosses, orchids, saxifrages, monkey-flowers, vines, and a thousand other epiphytic and saxatile plants.

All along the open cliffs, scarps, and walls of the Valles Marineris and the steep slopes of the larger reconstructed craters grew all sorts of other saxatile plants. Stonecrops, saxifrages, lichenoids, monkey flower, beard tongue, lupine, wild buckwheat, paintbrush, bitterroot, biscuit root, balsamroot, onion, rock ferns, daisy and flycatcher barely scratched the surface of the numbers of kinds of Earth-like plants. Many other kinds that Rapunzel remembered from Ingary joined them. In turn, those were joined by still others of Rapunzel's own imagining.

The scene repeated itself over and over in every other habitat type across Mars.

Carnivorous pitcher plants, fly-traps, and sundews joined orchids, buttercups, lupines, larkspurs, azaleas, corn-lily, tiger lily, sedges, and many others in open marshes, along with Ingarian plants and newly indigenous Martian ones. Dryland and desert plants of all sorts peppered rain shadow zones.

Stout kauri trees stood upon gentle slopes of the subtropics, giving way to giant sequoia in more northerly latitudes inland and redwood along the temperate coasts, dawn redwood between them. Baobabs, Joshua trees, juniper, and pines adorned the more arid interior and rain shadows.

Mixed among them were ginkgo, rainbow eucalyptus, purple Ingarian fir, maples, dogwood, locust, poplar, pines, cedars, junipers, alders, among myriads of Earth types, many Ingarian and Martian trees, as well as rich varieties of shrubs—azalea, spiraea, mountain-ash, oceanspray, ninebark, roses, sagebrush, mountain mahogany, buckbrush, tanoak, manzanita, wild lilac, mock-orange, snowberry, yucca, cactus, farkhan, urlaf, and more--from all three worlds and bamboos in an even wider array of sizes and colors as known on Earth.

Everywhere on Mars, medicinal and edible plants grew. Multiple herbal treatments for every ailment that could befall human, Ingarian, and Lothnellir grew in great profusion. Edibles grew in even greater profusion—fruits, roots, leaves, stems, and seeds. Some—huckleberry, salmonberry, Oregon grape, cranberry, elderberry, skunkbush, saskatoon, indian-plum, thimbleberry, salal, currant, hopniss, onion, potato, grape, nashi, pineapple, among thousands of others—were familiar to humans, while many others were known only from Ingary, and some newly contrived. All were edible to humans, Ingarians, and Lothnellir alike.

Ferns, cycads, and a mind-shattering array of woodland, meadow, prairie, tundra, alpine, coastal, riparian, and dryland herbaceous plants completed the vast palette of Terran, Ingarian, and Martian plant life that grew across the face of Mars. It was more than enough to make any field botanist drool rivers for decades.

Rapunzel sowed spores for fungi. Some of them immediately began to work their way through the soils of Mars and the bark and roots of its plants. Others lay dormant until such time as branches and trees would fall to the ground to become hosts for shelf and coral fungi, mushrooms, and slime molds. She inoculated everything with the microbes needed to maintain balance in Mars' nascent biosphere.

Rapunzel looked and was delighted in her artistry.

And Mars rotated again, marking a fourth day.

Rapunzel dragged Mars even closer to herself. Then she said, “Let the waters of Mars teem with all sorts of living things!”

Then Rapunzel sang an even more complex song. More material fell from orbit and entered the ocean, lakes, and streams of Mars. Driven by Rapunzel's song, the molecules joined together to take the forms of aquatic animals, condensing into bones, muscles, fins, tentacles, scales, spines, teeth, claws, eyes that resolved into the recognizable forms of creatures of the water.

Another jolt of energy swept the planet and the water creatures came to life. Everywhere in the Martian waters, diatoms, plankton, crustaceans, mollusks, echinoderms, corals, jellies, creatures otherwise found only in Earth's fossil record, strange creatures unknown to Terran or Ingarian biologists, great varieties of bony and cartilaginous, scaly and non-scaly fish of all sizes and shapes, as well as cetaceans, pinnipeds, plesiosaurids, aquatic salamanders, sea turtles, as well as Ingarian water animals and native Martian ones lived, moved, and hunted one another.

Salmon, striped bass, sturgeon, shad, and other anadromous fishes churned river waters on their way upstream. Sculpins darted about the tide-pools. Whales sang to each other while dolphins, orcas, ichthyosaurids, mososaurs, and plesiosaurs breached. Sea turtles, placodonts, and nothosaurs shoved their way onto beaches. Bass and crappie lurked beneath lily pads, perch among rushes and cattails, while landlocked salmonids cruised open lake waters. Sea bass and eels twined through the kelp forests while a kaleidescope of colorful fishes and small shrimps danced about the corals.

Bioluminescent fish and ghost shrimp plied the dark floor of Hellas Sea. Coelacanth and placoderms wrestled with giant squid in the twilight depths. Trilobites, nautilus, amonites, rays, flounders, sharks, and surf-perch worked the shallow sandy shelves. Tuna, sailfish, basking sharks, shoals of anchovies and sardines, great sunfish and whale sharks glided through the open oceans among thousands other kinds of marine life.

Lobe-finned fish plied shallow inland waters, lungfish ready to migrate from one water-filled crater to another. Several kinds of crayfish skittered about shallow lakes, streams, and bays, some moving to and from the ocean or the flooded margins of Argyre Sea. Every body of water on Mars practically writhed with life.

And Mars rotated again, marking a fifth day.

Then Rapunzel said, “Let the air fill with flying animals and let the ground teem with those that do not!”

Then Rapunzel sang another song, even more complex yet than the one she'd sung before. Like before, more material streamed out of orbit and condensed into wings, shells, antennae, feathers, foeliri, beaks, tails, muscles, bones, claws, paws, eyes, noses, resolving into the forms of all the sorts of animals that fly in the air or crawl upon the ground.

The Martian skies filled with birds, repto-avians, bird-like animals, flying mammals, insects, and insectoids. The ground moved with more of the same, as well as reptiles, repto-mammalians, mammals, marsupials, amphibians, all representatives of modern and extinct Earth animals, Ingarian animals, and animals from Rapunzel's own imagination. A jolt of energy brought them all to life and they all promptly went about their designated business. The air, the forests, prairies, meadows, rivers, deserts, grasslands, tundras, alpines, scrublands, islands, and coastlines resonated with the sounds of all the animals that lived on Mars.

Shorebirds skittered along the beaches, slurping up sand fleas. Sand crabs burrowed in the surf. Gulls, pelicans, and pterydaclyloids teetered on the ocean breezes while albatross and larger pterydaclyloids soared further up. Migratory birds—geese, swans, cranes, and terns—joined quetzalcoatlus and the Ingarian pterosaurid flerakhir in long journeys from one hemisphere toward the other. Wading birds of all sorts stalked shallow lakeshores, riverbanks, coastal and inland marshes.

Raptors and rhamphorynchids pulled fish from the waters, rodents from the fields, and small birds from the air.

Jays, creepers, nuthatches, sparrows and the like flitted among trees in temperate latitudes and elevations. Woodpeckers hammered at trees. Hummingbirds zigged and zagged. Swallows swooped back and forth from their cliff-face dwellings. Other birds and flying creatures plunged through the mists of waterfalls. Flightless birds both small and gargantuan inhabited islands, uplands, and inlands from the tropics to the arctic and antarctic. Massive flocks of passenger pigeons and swifts careened across continents. A veritable kaleidoscope of feathers adorned the fields and forests of Mars, their wearers feeding on insects, seeds, fruits, nectar, fish, carrion, or each other.

Bats of many kinds fed on insects, fruit, or flower nectar. Some were active by day, others by night.

Dragonflies hurtled across the waters. Beetles and millipedes plowed through the accumulating leaf and needle duff. Bees, moths, and butterflies flitted from flower to flower. Tens of thousands of kinds of insects and insectoids flew, swarmed, hovered, or crawled in every habitat on Mars.

Temnospondyls, salamanders, frogs and turtles rooted through woodland undergrowth and the slow backwaters of rivers and ponds. Diapsids and flying squirrels glided between trees. Crocodilians joined sauropods and hippopotamids in the lower reaches of the larger rivers and shallow lake margins.

Snakes and small lizards slithered and skittered through trees, brush, and grass in all habitats except for alpine and tundra. Synapsids tromped near riparian areas in the arid interior. Compsognathids scurried about forest floors.

Bison shared prairies with antelope, deer, ceratopsians, stegosaurids, elephantines, equines, jackalopes, and unicorns. Large feline and theropod predators stalked jungle, forest, and grassland. Massive theropod scavengers waited in the shade of the thin woodlands that bordered open lands. Caribou roamed the tundra and bears, parasaurs, anatasaurs, and ankylosaurs wandered at will.

Throughout temperate and alpine regions, beaver, squirrels, lapines, porcupines, mountain goats, and glyptodonts found homes in hills and mountains. Demetridons sunned themselves alongside semi-arid riparian zones.

With one last set of notes, she set the remaining material into orbit as a crystalline ring of feldspars and other glittering minerals. It circled Mars in such a way as to be visible at one time or another from anywhere on the planet and from Earth. She settled Mars' moon Phobos into a stable orbit at the outer edge of the ring. Then she stabilized Mars' new orbit, jarred the planet's magnetic field into being, and shut off the stream of energy ejecta.

And Mars rotated again, marking a sixth day.

From her vantage point above the new north polar ice cap, Rapunzel gazed on all the things she had sung into being. She listened to the cries, calls, and songs of all the animals that lived upon the Martian soil and flew through its air. She heard the splashing sounds as other animals swam and waded through the Martian waters. She watched the way the new Martian biosphere reflected her own reckless, raging, furious love.

Rapunzel looked and delighted in her fit of creativity. She squealed with a joy she felt from her core through her photosphere and chromosphere clear to her outer corona.


	6. Chapter 6

Corvallis  
July 25, CY 27, 2039 AD

The image of Mars' re-creation faded like a vanishing morning mist, replaced by the conference table on the Coronan Embassy's roof in Corvallis. Whether those images had been holographic, or planted in his mind, Eugene wasn't sure. He was even less sure it mattered.

Every face around the table wore the same wide eyes and slack jaws. Even Eugene fought to keep his mouth where it belonged. The ensuing silence was deafening, broken only by the stiff breeze trying to wrench papers from their weighing rocks.

Rapunzel stood there, oscillating and beaming, her simulated skin a delicate golden color.

Peter Jones let out a low whistle. “That...that's awesome!” he said.

“It's gorgeous!” Astrid gushed.

Similar expressions floated about the table. Rapunzel continued to grin.

“This is outrageous!” declared Arab Sheikh Sherif ibn Salahadin. “Only Allah can create!”

Rapunzel's smile faded. She cocked an eyebrow. “You haven't been paying attention, have you?”

“What sort of trickery is this?” he demanded.

She pointed at the photographs. “Seriously? If you would pry your head out of your rear end for ten seconds, we'd have far fewer problems.”

“How dare you! I demand...”

Rapunzel's other eyebrow rose. “ _You_ demand? Of _me_?” She sighed, and shook her head. Her expression softened. “Sherif, Sherif, Sherif.”

The man's eyes narrowed, but Rapunzel went on. “You came here of your own volition. Did you knew nothing about me before you did?”

“He knew enough,” said the man from the CUT. His voice had an edge to it, one that Eugene didn't like.

“I didn't ask you,” said Rapunzel bluntly.

“You do not see,” said the man. He stalked around the table and grabbed Rapunzel's shoulders in both hands. “But **I...SEE...YOU!** ” The voice was dark, like the sound of surf grinding on unseen rocks merged with what Eugene had always imagined a dragon's growling belly to sound like. It made his skin crawl.

Rapunzel stared right back at the man, then rolled her eyes. “Oh, don't be absurd. Of course you see me. Everyone sees me. I'm the sun.”

“ **I...SEE...YOU!** ” the man said again. His voice was even worse than before. Every harsh or unpleasant sound Eugene had ever heard, from the scraping of fingernails against a slate, to the shriek of rapidly-escaping steam, the rending of metal, to the screams of tortured and dying men and beasts seemed wrapped up in that voice, a voice that chilled his skin, curled the little hairs on the back of his neck, and made him feel like he'd never be cheerful again.

Rapunzel was completely unphased. She suddenly slammed both of her hands against the man's head. “Come out of him,” she said.

“ **HE IS MINE** ,” the voice growled.

“Not anymore.”

“Ah, but **I...STILL...SEE...Y**.....” The voice broke into an inhuman shriek. His body twitched. He scrabbled at Rapunzel's hands in repeated futile attempts to move them.

“I said, leave him!” Rapunzel commanded.

“N...n...n...”

“ _NOW!_ ” Her voice reverberated with a power Eugene felt in his bones. It felt physical, driving out the darkness like a warm spring thaw. A light shone in her eyes, then blazed up until even Eugene could barely look at them. The man screamed, then went limp. The glow in Rapunzel's eyes suddenly went out. Silence again descended.

“You killed him!” said the Czar at length.

Rapunzel let go of the CUT man's head and caught him as he fell. “Now, why would I do that?” she asked.

“Because...”

“It was rhetorical,” she interrupted.

She gently lifted the man to his feet, then tipped his head upward and gazed into his eyes. His face had changed. The features were still the same, but the expression was one of extreme bewilderment, the mouth slightly slack, the eyes blinking and darting about erratically.

“Who are you?” he asked. There was a softness to the tone that Eugene had only ever heard in children, or people with developmental disorders. The man suddenly stiffened, his eyes widening. “Wha...” He glanced downward, then took a half step back. The movement was awkward and jerky, as though he didn't know how to handle his own body. He lifted a hand in front of his face, turning it back and forth as though it were unfamiliar to him.

He looked back at Rapunzel, unbridled fear on his face. “What happened to me? Where am I? Where are my mommy and daddy?” He said the words the way a child would, a stark contrast to the grown, battle-hardened man speaking them. Then he started to cry. Eugene had a very bad feeling about it.

Rapunzel took him in her arms, patting him on the back in just the way she did with children. The whole thing looked very strange.

“Forgive me, Queen Rapunzel,” said King William, “this is all very, erm, touching. But don't we still have some more business to discuss? Or are we finished here?”

“In a minute,” said Rapunzel. She held the CUT man for a few more moments, then gently pulled him out toward arm's length. “Now, Bobby, it's a very long story.”

“How do you know my name?” asked Bobby.

“I am Rapunzel and I know much. That's an even longer story. Now, I have some things to discuss with you after this meeting.”

“You know,” said Jones, “I'm pretty sure there's a long line of people who'd like to have him hung after the meeting.”

“Indeed there is. I have other ideas. Beginning with...” She held both hands on the sides of Bobby's head, then began to hum. It was an odd sound and Eugene was unsure how else to describe it, other than that he'd never heard her hum that way before.

After a few moments, Bobby began to shrink. No, it was more than that. Eugene watched the lines on the face vanish, the hair darken, the musculature thin out a little. The man was rapidly de-aging. A few minutes later, Rapunzel removed her hands.

“There, Bobby,” she said, a note of satisfaction in her voice. “I think you'll find that much more to your liking.”

“What...was that?” asked William.

“Well, a boy should experience growing up, shouldn't he?” She cocked her head at Bobby, then touched his clothing. The robes quickly shrank to fit Bobby's frame, turning from the orange-red color they'd been to something resembling a sage green as they did. “Now,” she continued, “if you'll go stand beside Eugene, we'll show you what we're doing.”

“Um,” said Peter, “just why are you letting him stay?”

“I want him to be involved.”

“Aren't you overlooking something?” William asked.

“Such as?”

“Such as that that man...boy...person is responsible for all sorts of crimes against humanity.”

“No, he isn't.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Bobby is guilty only of inviting the wrong sort of company. Company that then proceeded to drive his body around. Now, in the meantime, we need to begin construction immediately.”

“Construction of what, exactly?” asked Peter.

“Among other things, you will build _this_ ,” said Rapunzel. A slowly-rotating image appeared in mid-air. It looked like an elongated box with four struts rising from each of its corners, a cylinder fixed to the end of each strut.

“...and _this_...” The image changed to something nearly as long as the box, but shaped very much like a watermelon. Strange spheres and cylinders protruded in various places.

“...and _this_...” Now the image became a sphere with a conical projection on one side and some sort of superstructure mounted to it.

“...and _this_...” The image became a different sort of arrangement of spheres and cubes.

“...and _this_...” The shapes merged together into something that reminded Eugene of an octopus.

“...and you will build it _here_.” A translucent image of Mars filled the space, a bright yellow patch glowing along the northeastern shore of Argyre Planitia.

“ _These_ are the plot and architectural plans you will use.” Several thick sheaves of paper appeared out of nowhere and thudded onto the table. “ _These_ are the schematics for the equipment you will construct.“ Several more, even thicker, sheaves appeared and also thumped onto the table. “Some of them, anyway.” She smiled. “I thought I'd let you have a _little_ fun with the architecture.”

Peter reached for one of the sheaves of paper, then paused. “May I?”

“By all means.”

Peter stood up and began to page through the plans. At length, he let out a low whistle. “Wow. This is...incredible! But, uh, it's going to take years of ar and dee just for this...lift vehicle. Not to mention the...” He looked at the cover sheet of a second set of plans. “...survey vessel. It took close to a decade to design and build the hardware that took us to the Moon and back. This is...what's our time-frame again?”

“I want the first survey vessel bound for deep space in five years.”

Murmurs floated around the table.

“Whoa,” said Peter, “five years? No way. It can't be done.”

Rapunzel placed a hand on Peter's shoulder. “Peter,” she said fondly, “I'm a woman of many means. Surely you know this by now. Surely you also know I don't intend to simply hover over your shoulders and watch.”

“Okay,” he said uncertainly, “but even assuming we solve all the, uh, person-power problems, I seem to recall you saying something about wanting tens of thousands of these ships. How in the...heck...are we going to fund that?”

“In terms of materials, most of it I will personally provide for free. Feeding the labor force will be done by Mars itself. That's a lot of the potential expense right there. Have you not suspected that I've thought of everything?”

“No offense,” said King William, “but if you can create a planet and put life on it, why do you need to involve us at all? Can't you make these ships yourself and can't they self-sail?”

“A vast force attacks your country. You're outnumbered a thousand to one. Who defends your home?”

“Under that sort of scenario...probably everyone.”

“Exactly!” She smiled. “And don't tell me you don't want to be involved in a space program.”

Rapunzel turned to the others assembled. “Many of you know I've always had an active management style. I will work with everyone on this. Indeed, have I not already begun so? Failure is not an option. Never before in the history of our worlds has success been more important.

“Therefore, we will begin construction immediately. I have already platted and graded most of the building sites when I created Mars. All you need to do is build there. There are certain preliminary materials and supplies that I want Bifrosted up there before the week is out. In the meantime, I want to hold detailed planning meetings to discuss things like logistics and personnel, and to answer specific questions. This is going to be so much fun!” She   
finished with a squeal.

Eugene chuckled. “I didn't want to be bored anyway.”


End file.
